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| High Court orders sacking of 162 JEs | | Appointments made in violation of rules | |
Early Times report
Jammu, May 15: In a significant order, the Jammu and Kashmir High Court today quashed appointments of 162 Junior Engineers in the Mechanical Wing.
Allowing 13 petitions challenging the appointment of JEs (Mechanical), Justice Sunil Hali of J&K High Court Jammu Wing today quashed selection/ appointment of 162 Junior Engineers Mechanical made in 2004.
The controversy of selection and appointments were challenged by the unsuccessful candidates in the State High Court and after the judgment of the writ court LPA was filed. Following split judgment of the Division Bench differing in their views the matter was referred to the third Judge, who vide his judgment April 16, 1999 agreed with one of the Judge of the Division Bench. Against this order the state filed SLP in the Supreme Court which was disposed off on September 3, 2003 with directions.
While quashing the select list the Court directed the official respondents to conduct the interview afresh in pursuance to the notification No 3 of 1997 dated April 29, 1997 and all those persons who had participated in the selection process conducted in pursuance to the aforesaid notification may be called after following the mandate of Rule 13 (ii) of Rules of 1992. However, the Service Selection Recruitment Board may exercise the option of seeking relaxation in terms of Rule 22 (b) of Rule 1992. Court directed that the selection process shall be completed within a period of four months from today. With these observations and directions Court disposed of all the writ petitions along with connected CMPs.
Justice Hali, while allowing the 13 petitions, further observed that the selection was made in violation of amended rules of 1997 which renders the appointments made there under illegal. It was suggested at the bar by the counsel for the petitioners that since the private respondents are working for the last more than four years, it would be appropriate if a direction is issued to the official respondents to consider the petitioners also for appointments. Court declined their prayer for the reason that once the Court holds that the whole selection was illegal no direction can be issued to appoint the petitioners also on the basis of select list which is illegal and goes to the route of appointment. The appointments made on the basis of the select list and reframed select list cannot be sustained and as such is required to be quashed.
In the landmark approved for reporting judgment Justice Hali, after hearing battery of lawyers appearing for the petitioners and respondents, referred various judgments and observed that the selection was made in violation of amended rules of 1997 which renders the appointments made there under illegal and also referred the recommendation of the board allowed the merit list to operate except in respect of 14 candidates against whom it was detected that their marks were tempered, however, when direction was issued to exclude these 14 candidates the board only recommend five persons against whom there were allegations of their marks having been tempered. The fate of rest 9 persons is not known from record. JNF
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