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Empanelment record : High court again puts Centre on notice on Khemka’s fresh plea
The Punjab and Haryana high court on Friday put the Centre on notice on a fresh plea of senior Haryana cadre IAS officer Ashok Khemka, who has demanded records pertaining to empanelment or exclusion of officers at the Centre be summoned.
The fresh plea has been filed days after the HC had put the Centre on notice for August 24, in a plea wherein Khemka had challenged the central administrative tribunal (CAT) order dismissing his petition seeking direction to the Centre to consider his empanelment.
As per Khemka, he was empanelled as joint secretary in December 2010 and applied for central deputation in 2011, 2012 and 2014, but was not appointed.
Non-empanelment at this stage would lead to a cascading effect and he will not be able to serve at the Centre permanently, he had argued.
In the fresh plea, the Haryana IAS officer says that on June 8, he had sought information under RTI to give names of all IAS officers who had been given relaxation against empanelment guidelines for evaluating their suitability for inclusion in the panel of secretary/additional secretary, but the information was denied.
Then again on July 9, the information was sought to give names of all IAS officers who after April 2016 were excluded from consideration for evaluating their suitability for inclusion in the panel of secretary/additional secretary because of non-fulfilment of guidelines, but it too was refused.
Hence, no information was produced to substantiate that despite him being empanelled at the post of joint secretary in 2010 and being placed in the offer list in 2011 and 2012, why his appointment never fructified.
“The arbitrariness of the Union in meeting out sweeping relaxations to others unaffected by any hardship, whilst not applying mind on the petitioner’s repeated pleas demonstrates severe hardship, reeks foul. Therefore, it is essential for the determination of the present petition to summon the records,” the fresh application filed by him says.
The officer also wants a complete list of the posts for which he was shortlisted in 2011 and 2012 for the appointment as joint secretary and recommendation/decision by the civil services board and the appointment committee of the cabinet.
He also wants the Centre to supply the record to the court as to what were recommendations/decisions of the civil services board and the cabinet committee for his appointment as joint secretary in 2014. The notice on the fresh plea has been issued for August 24 too.