HC vacates stay on selection of candidates

CHANDIGARH: The Punjab and Haryana high court on Wednesday vacated stay on the selection of candidates for five posts of Indian Administrative Service (IAS) from amongst the non-state civil service (non-scs) officers in Haryana.

The bench of justice S Muralidhar while posting the matter for final hearing on December 15 made it clear that appointments, if made, will be subject to outcome of writ petition.

On August 18, the high court had stayed the final selection of candidates on the plea of Surender Singh Dahiya, 52, additional director, agriculture department, who challenged the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) order of August 7. The CAT had upheld the Haryana government’s June 9 order on Haryana Public Service Commission (HPSC) conducting a written test to shortlist the candidates.the stay was vacated as the state had argued that August 18 order has stalled the process of filling up of the posts.

As per the Haryana government, HPSC was only to conduct a written examination and then forward the list of 25 meritorious candidates to the chief secretary, who would then forward it to the UPSC. It says that the state is competent to evolve a criterion for the selections of candidates as it has been given complete discretion on adjudging a person to evaluate outstanding merit and ability for the purpose of shortlisting.

The petitioner says that the HPSC can conduct the exam only with respect to state civil services and not the all-india services. Also, the only criterion for adjudging the outstanding ability and merit of the candidate is by way of service record of a candidate as a non-scs officer and not the examination, the petitioner had argued.