M A I N   N E W S

SC allows HP to appoint 100 JEs
Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, March 31
In a major relief to nearly 100 candidates selected by the Himachal Pradesh Government for appointment as junior engineers on three-year contract last year, the Supreme Court today permitted the state government to go ahead with the appointment process with immediate effect.

Lifting the Himachal Pradesh High Court’s June 10, 2005 interim stay order on issuing appointment letters to the candidates, a Bench of Chief Justice Y.K. Sabharwal, Mr Justice C.K. Thakker and Mr Justice R.V. Raveendran said impugned order and all other subsequent directives issued by it in the case were being set aside and letters of appointment should be issued to the selected candidates.

When the court was informed that of the 100 candidates, 54 had been issued appointment letters a few days before the June 10 stay order, the apex court said the remaining candidates should be appointed forthwith.

The order came on a special leave petition (SLP) by some selected candidates, whose counsel Neeraj Kumar Sharma said the High Court had imposed the stay on a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by an advocate even before deciding the question of his locus standi on the policy of the state government when he was not an affected party. State’s standing counsel J.S. Mehta supported the SLP saying that the High Court should not have issued the stay order before deciding the question of locus standi of petitioner who filed the PIL as the government had challenged its maintainability.

It was a policy decision of the government to recruit junior engineers on contract for three years in the Irrigation and Public Health Department and the petitioner had no case to challenge the policy of the state as had been laid down by the apex court in various judgements, Mehta said, adding that in such circumstances it was imperative that the question of maintainability should have been decided before the stay order.

Accepting the stand of the state government counsel, the apex court disposed of the SLP, but observed that its order would not in any way “prejudice” the hearing before the High Court in the PIL, which is still pending.

In the PIL, the petitioner had alleged that the selection of candidates only on the basis of interviews was arbitrary, illegal, discriminatory and against the recruitment and promotion rules framed by the state under Article 309 of the Constitution.