Chandigarh, June 17: The Punjab and Haryana High Court has come down heavily on Haryana’s top bureaucrats, calling their conduct in the exclusion of a civil services aspirant a display of “subpar acumen” and possibly “poorer integrity”.
Justice Vinod S Bhardwaj, while allowing a plea by Ritu Lather, whose candidature for the Haryana Civil Services (Executive Branch) was rejected, lambasted “secretary-level” officials for adopting an interpretation “contrary to the statutory mandate.”
The court questioned whether the decision-makers lacked judicial understanding, acted under direction to appease vested interests, or maliciously misapplied rules to target individuals. “Whatever be the cause,” the judge said, “it certainly reflects either a poor acumen or a poorer integrity… not a very comforting reason either.”
The petitioner was excluded on the ground that her name appeared in an FIR dated June 26, 2015, despite being exonerated in a vigilance inquiry. Justice Bhardwaj said that Rule 14 of the HCS (Executive Branch) Rules required only a clearance from the “vigilance angle”, not a clean record from any FIR or court proceedings.
The State Vigilance Bureau, in fact, had cleared her in a 2016 report, and a later communication in July 2019 reiterated her innocence. Yet, her name was dropped from the list of candidates.
In contrast, the court noted that two other officers with pending FIRs involving moral turpitude were considered eligible, simply because no vigilance inquiry had been conducted against them. Terming the approach irrational, Justice Bhardwaj stated:
“This court fails to find any rationality as to how a case of a person against whom an FIR has been registered but vigilance angle not inquired into can be on a better footing than one against whom, despite an FIR, the vigilance gives a clear-cut finding of innocence.”
Calling the state’s logic flawed and unjustified, the court set aside the rejection and directed consideration of the petitioner’s candidature, asserting the rule of law cannot be held hostage to poor interpretations.
