Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Jan 22: In a major development, which will lead to resolution of long pending issue of Jammu and Kashmir Administrative Service (KAS) officers, Supreme Court today asked the State High Court to dispose of all the pending Letters Patent Appeals (LPAs) relating to seniority of KAS officers within a period of two months. Due to this direction, the final seniority list of this category of officers would become a reality after a long gap and disputes.
However, the Apex Court permitted the State Government to make officiating arrangements at the level of Special Secretaries but only for the period during which High Court will dispose of the LPAs with the direction that all this must be done in compliance to the judgment delivered by the Single Bench of Jammu and Kashmir High Court.
The Apex Court of the country passed these orders in the Special Leave Petition (SLP) filed by the J&K Government against the interim judgment of the Division Bench of State High Court whereby it had declined to allow the State Government to continue with the stopgap arrangements vis-à-vis induction of KAS officers in the Special Scale.
Senior Advocate Permod Kohli along with Advocate Ashok Mathur appeared for Jammu and Kashmir Government while as Senior Advocates P P Rao and Sunil Sethi appeared for those KAS officers, who were petitioners before the Single Judge and are respondents in the Supreme Court.
After hearing the arguments of counsels for all the parties, Supreme Court Bench said, “we request the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir to dispose of all the LPAs pending before it expeditiously but preferably within a period of two months from the date this order is made available to it”. The Bench further said, “we also permit the State Government to make officiating arrangements at the level of Special Secretaries only for a period of two months that too as per the judgment given by the Single Judge”.
The Single Bench of J&K High Court had directed for placing 49 officers, who were inducted in KAS Cadre without slots in their respective feeding services, at the bottom of the seniority list framed by the Government, which at the latter stage became disputed due to objections raised by officers aggrieved over this move. The Single Bench had observed that leave reserve vacancies cannot be utilized for granting promotions.
Besides, the Single Bench had also directed the State to review the cases of the petitioners in terms of Rule 15(4) of KAS Rules, 2008 provided it is demonstrated by the petitioners that the induction took place from the year 2004 to 2007.
Before the Division Bench of State High Court, three LPAs are pending for disposal. One LPA has been filed by Government challenging the judgment of Single Bench. The second LPA pertains to 49 officers aggrieved over the judgment of Single Bench while as third LPA has been filed by those officers, who were the petitioners before the Single Bench but want explicit directions from the Division Bench to settle the dispute once for all.
With the direction of the Supreme Court, High Court while disposing of the LPAs would issue final orders on the seniority list as till date only interim directions were being issued. Interestingly, instead of pressing for preparation of seniority list as per the merits the State Government was insisting on continuation of stop-gap arrangements and went for three round of litigations in the Supreme Court on this issue.
The litigations between KAS officers and the State Government started over the preparation of the final seniority list, which was dubbed as full of distortions by several KAS officers and after being denied seniority slots because of no-fault of theirs, a section of them knocked the doors of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court to get justice.
On November 8, 2013, Single Judge delivered judgment in the favour of petitioners holding them entitled to proportionate slot share as per J&K Administrative Services Rules, 2008. However, the judgment of the Single Judge was challenged before the Division Bench, which initially directed the State Government to maintain status quo with regard to the promotion of the officers. On further consideration of various appeals including the one filed by State seeking stay on the judgment of the Single Judge, the DB on February 5, 2014 modified the order of status quo by permitting the appellant State to make arrangements for general elections to the Lok Sabha by deputing officers from Time Scale, Selection Scale and Special Scale.
However, the DB made it clear that interim arrangements would come to an end within 10 days after the completion of Lok Sabha elections on May 31, 2014. For the obvious reasons, the State Government within next few days again moved an application seeking more relaxations to overcome the then administrative difficulty.
Thereafter, DB permitted the State to make stop gap arrangements by considering the cases of those senior officers including the non-applicant-writ petitioners for induction in Special Scale of KAS as an interim measure. However, the DB again reiterated that the interim arrangement shall come to an end 10 days after May 31, 2014 and it shall not be extended any further.
In the meanwhile, State Government filed Special Leave Petition in the Supreme Court against the order dated February 13, 2014 with the plea that impugned direction of the Division Bench of J&K High Court was bad in law. However, the Supreme Court issued notice limited to the question of consideration of the claim of the writ petitioners under the review mechanism provided under Rule 15(4) of the 2008 Rules.
As expected relief could not be obtained from the Supreme Court, the State Government again filed an application before the DB seeking extension of interim arrangement but the DB in the month of August last year dismissed the application filed by the State and made it clear that there will be no more stopgap arrangement on induction of KAS officers in Special Scale.
Instead of implementing the directions of the Division Bench, J&K Government preferred to allow interim arrangement and then knocked the doors of the Apex Court.
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