In the end, right remains right

Suresh Kumar

I was appointed Chief Principal Secretary to the Punjab CM after superannuation from the IAS in 2016. A stranger challenged the appointment. He was not a contender for the job. He averred that there were many able serving officers available. While his motives were unknown, it was clear that he neither knew me nor was he aware of transparency and the efforts I had made not to harm anyone ever since I joined government service.

‘The government was empowered to make such appointments,’ the court concluded. All states were making such appointments. Even the office of the PM was no exception. The National Security Adviser is a retired police officer who performs much more serious sovereign functions than what was alleged by the challenger in my case. The cause of this ill will was not known.

Many in the IAS believed it to be a handiwork of competitors in the service itself, who had some vested interest or something to hide and escape. Others blamed it on politics to tame the officers. The language of discussions in the media on the prolonged litigation was the same as heard in clubs and drawing rooms.

I did not go to the court as I had no personal interest or agenda. The challenger questioned the appointment order of the government, and therefore, it was left to it to defend. The rules of business issued by the government under Article 166 of the Constitution permitted such an appointment, and even Article 310(2) empowers the government to make contractual appointments. The allegation of usurping powers of any officer or the CM was baseless and malicious as no CM, much less Capt Amarinder Singh who was a soldier at heart, allows a bureaucrat to use or misuse his authority. The swift decision-making and non-interference in day-to-day ministerial and administrative work by Amarinder Singh were perhaps not seen in the right spirit. Even in his earlier stint as CM from 2002-2007, when I was his Principal Secretary, he remained non-interfering and decisive to the task.

Though late, the government woke up to defend its order and it was argued well in the second round of litigation after the first flawed order in 2018. The final order has accepted the appeal of the government and set aside the earlier order. The order reaffirmed the faith in the rule-bound functioning of the executive, and established that right remains the right, and it differs from the wrong even if we try to subvert the laws and rules to disprove the right. I was falsely accused and wrongly judged but I maintained my cool and carried on for four and a half years hoping justice would be done, but divine powers saved me with the change of the Amarinder Singh government in 2021. Perhaps, I should not have rejoined the government.

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