High Court imposes Rs 1,000 cost on Centre in Khemka case

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 3

The Punjab and Haryana High Court today imposed a cost of Rs 1,000 on the Union of India for its failure to file a reply on a plea filed by Haryana’s senior IAS officer Ashok Khemka. In his main petition pending before the High Court, Khemka is seeking directions to consider him for empanelment at the level of Additional Secretary to the Government of India. Khemka is posted as the Principal Secretary, Science and Technology Department, Haryana. The High Court also asked the Union Government to file its reply within a week.

In his plea, Khemka had sought the summoning of certain records but the Central Government failed to respond. “This case has been taken up for hearing through video-conferencing. The counsel for the respondent – Union of India — prays for and is permitted to file a written statement within one week from today, subject to the payment of Rs 1,000 as cost,” observed the Division Bench of Justice Rajiv Sharma and Justice Harinder Singh Sidhu. The case would now come up for hearing on September 15.

Khemka’s counsel had earlier told the Bench that the petitioner having been successfully empanelled as Joint Secretary to the Government of India, sought his empanelment as Additional Secretary. However, the notification empanelling 31 IAS officers of the 1991 batch did not include the petitioner’s name.