‘Ashok Khemka not eligible for central govt appointment’

CHANDIGARH: The Centre has told the Punjab and Haryana high court that senior Haryana IAS officer Ashok Khemka cannot be considered for appointment to the central government as he did not fulfil the eligibility criterion.

The Centre said Khemka had ‘nil’ central experience at the time of consideration of his batch for empanelment at additional secretary level. “Empanelment at senior levels cannot be claimed as a matter of right; and it is for the competent authority to decide the suitability of the officer for empanelment in terms of the relevant guidelines/ instructions. ..petitioner has been left out from empanelment .... because he did not fulfil the eligibility criteria,” Subandhu Basu, under secretary, department of personnel and training, said in an affidavit.

In July, Khemka had filed a plea challenging a Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) order, wherein, his plea seeking direction to Centre to consider his empanelment was dismissed.

The Centre’s response has come in that plea.

The court was told that after April 2016, officers who had not completed a single year of central deputation but were currently serving at the Centre may be considered for empanelment along with the next batch. Otherwise, officers who had been serving at the Centre for more than a year were also being considered for empanelment with their batch. The petitioner lost opportunity for consideration of his candidature on his own volition, it stated.

The Centre told court that even the CAT had recorded that his claims on deputation at the Centre on various occasion were ‘at best, intermittent and not sustained’ and that he appeared to be misleading the court by citing example of other officers who were serving at Centre. The court was given details of some such appointments.

The Centre also stated that Khemka’s claim that his consent was taken for appointment in the Prime Minister’s Office, was never recommended by the appointment committee of the cabinet (ACC).