Chandigarh, May 27
The Punjab and Haryana High Court today reversed its own committees’ recommendations and placed at least 31 PCS (Judicial) officers back in the judgment seat.
Nearly six years after the “first committee” recommended the termination of officers belonging to 1998-2001 batches subsequent to the unearthing of the alleged Punjab Public Service Commission (PPSC) scam, a three-judge Bench of the High Court ordered the reinstatement of the petitioners before it. All appointments were made during the tenure of (PPSC) chairman Ravinderpal Singh Sidhu.
The Bench, comprising Chief Justice Vijender Jain, Justice H.S. Bhalla and Justice Rajesh Bindal, ruled: “The petitioners in respect of 1998, 1999 and 2000 batches are ordered to be reinstated”.
The Bench also directed: “The appointment letter earlier issued by the state government to petitioners Parveen Bali, Manisha Jain, Avtar Singh Barda, Mahesh Kumar, Balwinder Kumar, Harprit Singh, Gurkirpal Singh Sekhon and Tarantaran Singh Bindra, except for Rajwinder Kaur (since deceased), relating to 2001 batch are ordered to be restored.
“Thereafter, respondent HC is directed to issue posting orders to all petitioners pertaining to 1998-2000 batches; and also of the eight petitioners in respect of the 2001 batches, within three months from today”.
In an attempt to minimise the damage, the Bench further directed that the petitioners belonging to the 1998-2000 batches “shall not be entitled to salaries for the period they remained out of job, until the reinstatement. But, the said period shall be counted as period spent on duty for the purpose of determining the qualifying service for pension and other purposes, including the grant of increment etc. Non-performance of duties for the said period shall not be treated as break in service”.
Going into the background of the matter, the Bench observed that the Full Court, in a meeting held on May 25, 2002, passed a resolution, constituting a committee of four judges “in light of the disturbing reports appearing in the Press and the electronic media, containing allegations against certain judges of this court and their wards”.
The committee perused the answersheets of nine candidates named by the approver - one each from the 1999 and 2000 batch and seven from the 2001 batch. It observed that the awards given to them could not be justified.
On August 12, 2002, the Full Court accepted the committee’s report and recommended the termination of the officers belonging to all four batches.
The state government, on September 27, 2002, dispensed with the services of the officers belonging to not only 1999-2000 batches, but also the pipeline batch of 2001.
The government, however, referred back the 1998 batch officers’ case, following which a second committee was constituted by the then Acting Chief Justice on October 10, 2002. It considered the statements of approvers and witnesses and concluded that the performance of most candidates was below average before recommending termination.
Clearing the dust of controversy coating their appointment files, the Bench ruled: There is nothing on record which could spell out that the entire selection process of the 1998 batch was vitiated on account of malafides of biasness… “The petitioners had earned good and satisfactory reports during the period they remained in service. The HC committee, without there being sufficient and adequate matter on record, recommended cancellation of the appointment of the petitioners.”
