High Court directs Haryana to accept its recommendations on judicial officers’ promotion; imposes costs for unwarranted delay

Tribune News Service

Saurabh Malik

Chandigarh, December 20

More than three months after the State of Haryana refused to agree to the recommendations made by the Punjab and Haryana High Court for appointing 13 judicial officers as Additional District and Sessions Judges, a Division Bench on Wednesday directed the government to accept the same.

For the purpose, the Bench of Justice G S Sandhawalia and Justice Lapita Banerji set two-week deadline.

The Bench also made it clear that the judicial officers recommended by the high court would each be entitled to Rs 50,000 costs.

The amount would be paid by the state for unnecessary delaying the promotion and denying the officers their legitimate right to work on a higher post.

The directions came on a bunch of petitions by Shikha and other petitioners working as Civil Judge Senior Division and Chief Judicial Magistrate in Haryana.

They were seeking the quashing of the impugned letter dated September 12, whereby the state refused to accept the recommendation.

The Bench asserted the state, now to hold, it was not for the high court to see what were the qualities a judicial officer should possess for promotion as Additional District Judge, and seek opinion from a third party –– the Union of India –– following a representation by an unaffected person, would amount to a serious assault on the independence of the functioning of the High Court, which had been ordained with the selection process.

The Bench added the high court was a constitutional authority. Its recommendations were binding as consistently held by the Apex Court.

These would give the high court the power to direct that “the recommendations be duly given primacy” and the state government should be directed to act upon it.

“It would frustrate the very purpose of this litigation if the State government is again to insist that the promotion should be made on the basis that the cut-off in the interview be ignored, which was decided at an earlier point of time. It would be even more disastrous to the context that one of the States has already accepted the said recommendations and 13 judicial officers have already been promoted to the said post in Punjab.

To permit the State of Haryana to the contrary would open a Pandora box for the High Court which has jurisdiction over two States and was striving to follow a unified policy,” the Bench added.

Referring to a plethora of judgments, the Bench added the government was not within its right to take a different decision and overrule high court recommendation on the basis of a meddlesome interloper –– an advocate no way connected remotely to the selection process.

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