HIGH COURT STAYS CONTRACT JOBS TO RETIRED PATWARIS, KANUNGOS

CHANDIGARH: The Punjab and Haryana high court has stayed contractual appointments of retired patwaris and kanungos in Punjab.

The high court bench of justice Jaswant Singh acted on the petition of 23 people, including Baljit Singh of Ropar, who had told the court that government was not completing the process of recruitment of 1,227 posts of patwari, initiated in August 2015 and instead it came out with a notice on August 5, inviting applications from retired patwaris and kanungos for contractual appointments for a period of two years on first-come-firstserve basis. The applications from the retirees had been sought till August 22.

Their counsel, Dinesh Kumar, had told the court that these posts were governed by the Punjab Revenue Patwaris (Class III) Service Rules, 1966. Qualification prescribed for the post of patwari was matriculation or higher secondary, which was amended in 2014 and the qualification now was graduation. But these posts were being filled from among the retired officials who didn’t fulfil the amended qualification.

“Public appointments is a national wealth and is a property and all the eligible candidates are legally entitled for participation and their right of consideration for the appointments and the recruitment limited to the retired/superannuated employees is wholly unreasonable and irrational,” Kumar had argued.

The court was also told that there was no provision under 1966 rules as amended from time to time for appointing patwaris from among the retired officials. “By doing so government was depriving us of their just and legitimate right,” the petitioners had argued. The high court bench has sought the response from the state government and ordered that till the next date of hearing on September 23, the appointments, if any, made pursuant to the August 5 notice would remain stayed.