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| HC upholds controversial promotional order of Agriculture production deptt | | PSC told to confirm 900 officers | | Syed Junaid Hashmi
JAMMU, May 9: In another major embarrassment to Jammu and Kashmir government, High Court has upheld controversial 2008 promotional order of Agriculture Production Department (APD) in which around 900 officers were promoted.
High Court has upheld government order no. 279-Agri of 2008 dated 07-10-2008 passed by then Principal Secretary, Agriculture Production Department Sonali Kumar after carrying out comprehensive review of the agriculture cadre. She had cleared the seniority mess in the department by promoting almost 900 gazetted officers; including over 500 who had already retired after securing nil promotions in their entire service career.
Justice Hakeem Imtiyaz Hussain has in his order directed the administrative department to place the matter before Public Service commission/DPC for its examination and final orders. Court has disposed of all the petitions on the consensus of learned counsel for the parties, with the direction to the official respondents to place matter alongwith final seniority list of all the gazetted officers prepared by official respondents who are in the zone of consideration before Jammu and Kashmir Public Service Commission (JKPSC) within a period of two weeks from the date copy of this order is served upon them.
JKSPC has been further directed to finalize the matter within a period of six weeks from the date it is placed before it and on finalization, make recommendation to the government for appropriate orders. Court has further held out that govt. order no: 279-Agri of 2008 dated 7-10-2008 impugned in these petition shall remain subject to out come of the finalization of the matter by PSC.
Contrary to what agriculture department said about the controversial order, Justice Hakim Imtiyaz Hussain has quoted with appreciation the candid admission of the then-Adviser to Governor Badruddin Tayabji wherein he had said "I feel that the steps taken by the Principal Secretary (Agri) were the only way out of an impossible impasse. I had failed to deal with this issue in the 18 months; I spent as FC (Agri and RD) and the subsequent 5 years as Chairman PSC."
Court has further quoted Tayabji wherein he had observed "Today we have only three confirmed Joint Directors of Agriculture (posted as I/C Directors). All the rest of the Gazetted cadre (other than 2 Deputy Directors) is not confirmed by DPC/PSC and the functioning has been queered by orders in a number of writ petitions. Present exercise has been arrived at after the Principal Secretary (Agri) managed to get a consensual agreement to the course of action proposed from various associations representing different categories of officers. Persons agitated against the orders are believed to number not more than 15 who prospered under a regime where there was no regular seniority".
Further, Court has also made a mention of observations of then Governor. According to the judgment, Governor had written "…Para 14-16 ante endorsed. Separately, Chief Secretary should conduct an exercise to ascertain information, similar problem exist in other department and if so, same appropriate guidelines/directions to concerned Administrative Secretaries for time bound rectifications".
High Court has not only disposed off all these cases but also in a comprehensive manner stated that "the petitioners in all these petitions have not submitted the correct facts and are aggrieved that they do not get promotion under the impugned order while as the facts read in light of the recruitment rules would show that there is every justification for not to grant promotion on the basis of the seniority of the petitioner. Facts would further reveal that adhoc promotions granted by the respondents from time to time and dealing with the issue casually from time to time has resulted in chaos which the Government Order No. 279-Agri of 2008 dated 7.10.2008 has tried to remove it."
It needs to be mentioned here that on the basis of a news item published in a Kashmir based daily, Minister for Agriculture, Ghulam Hassan Mir, had formed a fact-finding committee to probe the matter. The 3-member committee submitted its report in mentioning that some qualified and deserving candidates had been dropped in violation of the established norms and service rules.
Mir had later recommended to Chief Minister to hold a full-fledged inquiry so that justice could be done. The inquiry was conducted by then Financial Commissioner, Home, Samuel Verghese, who indicted the former principal secretary, APD, Sonali Kumar, and some senior functionaries of the Department for alleged wrong-doings.
Thereafter, Sonali Kumar was transferred from the post of principal secretary APD after the Verghese report. This paved way for the senior bureaucrat, Iqbal Khanday, to assume the coveted position. Sonali was charge sheeted. Separately, a host of SWPs and CMPs were filed in the High Court.
On the other side, officers promoted vide the order have been asked to assume their duties as on 7-10-2008 vide Govt order No. 14 Agri of 2010 dated 29-01-2010. All the officers figuring in the government order No. 279 Agri of 2008 dated 7-10-2008 were told to report back to their duties and place of posting as on 7-10-2008. |
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