Former Union finance minister P Chidambaram will appear in the Punjab and Haryana high court on Wednesday in the appeal filed by the Punjab government defending its decision of appointing former bureaucrat Suresh Kumar as chief principal secretary to chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh.
“The state government has decided to engage Chidambaram in this case,” a government official said.
Besides Punjab advocate general Atul Nanda, Congress leader Chidambaram, a Supreme Court lawyer, too will appear before the division bench of justices Rajesh Bindal and BS Walia, a senior government official said. Earlier, former solicitor general of India Ranjit Kumar had appeared to defend the government’s decision before the single-judge bench.
The appeal was filed last week by the government against single-judge order of January 2017, in which Kumar’s appointment was quashed. The single-judge bench had held that Kumar was holding a public office without authority. The 1983-batch officer was appointed by the Amarinder government soon after coming to power in March 2017. The post, stated to be equivalent to the cabinet secretary, was created for the first time in Punjab.
The government’s decision to give power to Suresh Kumar to take decisions on behalf of the CM (in his absence) did not find favour with the high court which observed that accountability was very important in public appointments, which was ‘missing’ in the present case.
{{/usCountry}}The government’s decision to give power to Suresh Kumar to take decisions on behalf of the CM (in his absence) did not find favour with the high court which observed that accountability was very important in public appointments, which was ‘missing’ in the present case.
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