Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Aug 8: In a development of far-reaching consequences, Division Bench of State High Court comprising Chief Justice M M Kumar and Justice Dhiraj Singh Thakur has declined to allow the State Government to continue with the stopgap arrangements vis-à-vis induction of KAS officers in the Special Scale. With this, the Government will have to revert the orders regarding the placement of over 30 officers including those holding the posts of Special Secretary, Deputy Commissioner and Director to the Special Scale of KAS.
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 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. Every feeding service has the proportionate share in the KAS and the petitioners shall demonstrate before the Government that induction has taken place from 2004 to 2008 and their case has been left out, the Single Judge said while holding them entitled for retrospective effect of induction.
However, the judgment of the Single Judge was challenged before the Division Bench, which 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 while keeping intact the findings of the Single Judge regarding keeping 49 officers at the bottom of the seniority list for being inducted in Time Scale in violation of J&K Administrative Services Rules 1979, directed the State that the arrangements may be made by deputing officers from the writ petitioners first and if necessity arises from those 49 officers also.
The DB also 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.
While considering this application, the DB vide its order dated February 13, 2014, 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. “The arrangements are permitted only in the larger interest of running the day-to-day administration. However, these arrangements would come to an end 10 days after May 31, 2014 as already observed and shall not be extended any further”, the DB made it clear in the order.
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 as the same results in reversing the order of status quo granted in the Letters Patent Appeal filed by the petitioner/State in respect of direction to examine and consider the claim made by the non-applicant-writ petitioners under Rule 15(4) of 2008 Rules. It was also submitted that in the absence of any application seeking recall of the order of status quo there was no occasion to modify the same.
It was also submitted before the Supreme Court by the State that imposition of time limit for operation of the stopgap arrangement has resulted in a situation leading to uncertainty in the functioning of the administration and chaos.
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 allowed vide order dated February 13, 2014.
After hearing battery of lawyers, the DB observed, “the prayer for staying and continuation of the order dated February 13, 2014 has been declined by the Supreme Court as such this court cannot entertain the application for extension of interim arrangement”, adding “in the SLP contrary picture has been painted which is misleading. The facts have been misrepresented as the status quo order was modified on the application filed by the State Government”.
“It doesn’t behove of the State Government to take such a false stand before the Supreme Court”, the DB said, adding “if interim arrangements are allowed to continue then there is valid apprehension in the minds of the officers other than 49 that they will never get their due promotion particularly when in the order dated February 13, 2014 we have made it categorically clear that there would be no further extension granted. The period has come to an end on June 10, 2014”.
With these observations, the Division Bench dismissed the application filed by the State. With this order, there will be no more stopgap arrangements on induction of KAS officers in Special Scale and the Government will have to revert the orders regarding the placement of over 30 officers including those holding the posts of Special Secretary, Deputy Commissioner and Director to the Special Scale of KAS.
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