HC’s 3rd judge breaks deadlock, orders HCS appointment on parity

Breaking a judicial deadlock, Justice Vikas Bahl of the Punjab and Haryana High Court has ruled in favour of a candidate denied appointment to the Haryana Civil Services (Executive Branch), holding that the ground for not offering the appointment after branding him “tainted”— despite selection and recommendation by the Public Service Commission — was “not valid”. The ruling paves the way for his appointment with notional seniority and consequential service benefits.

“The ground for not offering the appointment to the present appellant by the State by treating him as a tainted candidate, after he had been selected and recommended for appointment by the Haryana Public Service Commission, is not valid and the appellant is entitled to claim parity with similarly placed persons, who had been given appointment,” he asserted.

The matter was placed before Justice Bahl following a split verdict from a Division Bench, comprising Justices Sanjeev Prakash Sharma and Meenakshi I. Mehta. Justice Sharma had allowed the appeal, while Justice Mehta had dismissed it. The matter was then referred to a third judge.

The candidate was represented by senior advocates Chetan Mittal and Akshay Bhan. The Bench was assisted in the matter by Haryana Additional Advocate-General Deepak Balyan. Justice Bahl held that the appellant was “duly selected” and “recommended for appointment” to the post under the general category, and the subsequent refusal by the State to appoint him—despite appointing five similarly placed candidates—amounted to an impermissible “pick and choose” policy.

“Once the State had made a criteria and had chosen to treat candidates in whose answer sheet the examiner had used two pens as untainted candidates and had further chosen to give appointment to them, then all the candidates who were similarly placed were also required to be treated in the same manner and the State could not have adopted a pick-and-choose policy,” he observed.

Going into the background of the matter, Justice Bahl observed the State had denied appointment on the ground that the appellant’s answer sheets in Hindi and essay carried markings in handwriting differing from the rest of the sheets, and that two different inks had been used by the examiner.

Justice Bahl noted that the appellant was neither accused of impersonation nor of any manipulation such as cutting of marks or tampering with fictitious numbers. “The appellant cannot be faulted for the examiner having used two pens, more so when there was no forgery and the same examiner had checked the other papers also. Further, there was no cutting in the paper nor was there any over-writing nor it was the case of the State that it was a case of impersonation. It is thus apparent that the present appellant, on the basis of record was required to be considered as innocent /untainted candidate,” the Bench asserted.

Order to be placed before CJ

The judgment, which effectively swings the balance 2:1 in the appellant’s favour, has now been directed to placed before the Chief Justice for appropriate orders following the third opinion.

Haryana Tribune