Srinagar, Sep 9: Nearly three months after the Jammu and Kashmir Government issued the final selection list of 223 outstanding sportspersons for government service, the selected athletes are still awaiting formal appointment letters, with an athletes’ association now seeking a time-bound resolution to the delay.
The final selection list was issued by the Youth Services and Sports Department on June 10, 2026 under Notification No. 02-JK(YSS) of 2026. It covers five Chief Coach posts in the Gazetted cadre for 2022 and 218 Instructor posts in the Non-Gazetted cadre for the period 2014-2022.
The recruitment exercise itself dates back several years. Applications had initially been invited in January 2022 for the outstanding sportspersons quota for calendar years 2014 to 2021. Following amendments to the rules through S.O. 412 of 2023, a revised advertisement was issued and the scrutiny process continued under a committee constituted by the General Administration Department in October 2023.
The provisional selection list was finally issued on February 11, 2026 for five Chief Coach posts and 217 Instructor posts. The department then invited objections before finalising the list. According to the final notification, the scrutiny committee received 227 objections from 84 applicants and non-applicants and examined the representations against the relevant records, rules and documents before disposing of them.
The final notification followed that process and increased the Instructor selection from the 217 posts mentioned in the provisional list to 218, taking the total number of selected sportspersons to 223.
On June 10, Youth Services and Sports Minister Satish Sharma announced the selection and said Chief Minister Omar Abdullah would formally hand over the appointment orders at a function. The selected athletes and sportspersons represented disciplines such as shooting, kayaking and canoeing, taekwondo, gymnastics, chess, weightlifting, cycling and skiing.
The appointment letters, however, have not followed the announcement.
On September 3, an association representing the selected sportspersons said the candidates were still waiting for formal appointment letters and urged the administration to issue them within 15 days. The association said the athletes had already completed the selection process and questioned why they continued to remain in uncertainty after being selected for government service.
The association has also sought completion of any remaining verification formalities and a public status of the appointment process, besides asking the administration to identify any specific legal or administrative obstacle holding up the appointments.
An official record does show that a verification exercise was still being undertaken after the final selection. The Jammu and Kashmir Sports Council published a notice on June 12 for verification of the character and antecedents of candidates selected under the 2022 rules as amended in 2023.
The statutory framework places the appointment process within a defined administrative structure. Under the 2022 rules, the General Administration Department is to consider appointments, subject to availability of posts and recommendations of a committee headed by the Chief Secretary, with the Administrative Secretaries of Home, Youth Services and Sports, and General Administration, along with the Director of Youth Services and Sports and Secretary of the Sports Council, as members.
The rules also provide that the Youth Services and Sports Department invites applications and submits the list of eligible candidates to the General Administration Department for placement before the committee.
Sources informed the news agency Kashmir News Trust that the delay has come against the backdrop of a separate controversy over the final selection list. A section of sportspersons who were not selected had protested, alleging irregularities in the recruitment process. The Sports Council defended the process in July, saying appointments were governed by statutory rules and government orders and involved scrutiny and examination by the competent committees.
The government subsequently decided in August to constitute a departmental committee to review the Appointment of Outstanding Sports Persons Rules, 2022, as amended by S.O. 412 of 2023. The Youth Services and Sports Department said the committee would examine the provisions of the rules, issues arising during their implementation and representations received from stakeholders. It also said the review would be prospective and would not, by itself, cast any aspersion on sportspersons already selected under the rules applicable to them.
The latest delay has also been linked in reports to the case of an individual sportsperson from Jammu, Surya Pratap Singh, who was not included in the final list and later protested seeking government employment. Selected athletes have said their appointments should not be held up over an issue concerning another candidate. These claims have been made by the athletes; the government has not publicly established that this individual case is the reason for withholding all 223 appointment letters.
The sequence leaves the selected sportspersons in an unusual position: the government has issued a final selection list after a prolonged scrutiny and objection process, the Sports Minister announced that appointment orders would be formally handed over, and the Sports Council subsequently conducted character and antecedent verification, but the candidates were still seeking appointment letters nearly three months after the final list was published.
The issue is therefore no longer about selection alone. For the 223 candidates whose names figure in the final list, the pending step is formal appointment and joining in government service. [KNT]
