HC: Recast seniority list of judicial officers

Tribune News Service

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Chandigarh, March 4

In a complete turnaround, superior judicial services officers regularly promoted on the basis of their seniority in Punjab have been placed at the bottom of seniority after the direct recruits. Available information suggests four session judges, as a result, may have to deal with the issue of their reversion.

Acting on a bunch of petitions, Justice Rajesh Bindal and Justice Harinder Singh Sidhu of the Punjab and Haryana High Court also directed recasting of the seniority list.

The devolvement took place on a petition by Kanwaljit Singh Bajwa and other judicial officers through a battery of lawyers, including Anupam Gupta, DS Patwalia and Puneet Gupta.

The Bench was told that the petitioners were appointed against direct recruitment quota posts after advertisement for recruitment was issued in February 2008. The respondents included judicial officers regularly promoted on the basis of seniority and officers promoted by way of a limited departmental competitive examination.

The recruitment/promotion committee for superior judicial services initially circulates a tentative seniority list for inviting objections. The committee, subsequently, ruled that the objections by the petitioners were not sustainable and the tentative seniority list did not require alteration. But, a High Court judge in September, 2015 offered his comments in terms of which the matter required re-consideration. It was put up in the full court meeting, where the committee report was accepted before the final seniority list was circulated, which was impugned in the present petitions.