HC dashes hopes of PCS officer appointed without graduation degree

The Punjab and Haryana high court has denied any relief to Punjab Civil Services officer Raman Kumar Kochhar, whose appointment was cancelled by the state government in 2020

The Punjab and Haryana high court has denied any relief to Punjab Civil Services (PCS) officer Raman Kumar Kochhar, whose appointment was cancelled by the state government in 2020.

The HC division bench upheld the decision of a single-judge bench that had ruled Kochhar did not possess the qualification of graduation for being considered for appointment to the post in the PCS.

The high court (HC) bench of justices MS Ramachandra Rao and HS Madaan upheld the decision of a single-judge bench that had ruled Kochhar did not possess the qualification of graduation for being considered for appointment to the post in the PCS (executive branch).

“…the appellant did not undergo an undergraduate course of three years duration, he cannot claim to be a graduate, and therefore, cannot be said to have fulfilled the requirement of possessing graduate degree for consideration for appointment,” the court said. It was in December 2020 when a single-judge bench had upheld the Punjab government’s decision of cancelling Kochhar’s appointment.

While not interfering with that decision, the division bench set aside the single-judge bench’s observation that Kochhar was apparently someone’s “blue-eyed boy” who managed to get appointed to the coveted post without even being eligible.

The division bench recorded that when a particular course of action is adopted by the state on the basis of the legal opinion of the advocate general, “motives cannot be attributed to decision makers holding such a high office as the then chief minister or the chief secretary”.

Kochhar had qualified the PCS exam in 2016 and his appointment was cancelled by the chief secretary on October 5, 2020, after finding that though he possessed three postgraduate degrees, he did not have a graduation degree, which was a pre-requisite qualification for appointment to the post. He was asked to join his parent cadre, where he worked prior to this appointment as a senior assistant at the Punjab Civil Secretariat. The illegality in appointment was brought to the fore by one Promila Sharma.

Kochhar has higher degrees of MA History from Annamalai University, MA Punjabi from Panjab University and Masters in Business Administration from Punjab Technical University, Jalandhar. After government decision, he had approached the HC on October 14, 2020, arguing that once having obtained higher qualification, the order cancelling his appointment is not justified.

The division bench also set aside the single-judge bench ruling that the MBA and MA Punjabi degrees obtained by Kochhar were not valid. “It was not necessary for the learned single judge to go into the said aspect,” the court said.