The Supreme Court has questioned the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s decision to quash a chargesheet against eight Haryana Civil Services (HCS) officers accused of securing selection through favouritism and manipulation in the 2001 recruitment examination.
A Bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta directed the Investigating Officer (IO) to appear before it on May 26 “along with the relevant material available with him”. The Bench also requested the Haryana Advocate General to assist the court in the matter.
Questioning the manner in which the high court dealt with the case, the Bench said, “Why has the high court not decided these matters which have been pending for the past 15 years?” It further wondered why the entire examination had not been cancelled by the state government or why no such direction had been issued earlier when the affidavit filed by the Additional Advocate General had pointed to serious manipulations in the recruitment process.
The Bench criticised the high court’s approach, observing, “It will take us three minutes to reverse this order. This order is absurd. Non-naming of an accused in a fraud FIR… copies have not been examined… the high court is holding on to the copies, how will the investigation be completed?”
On March 25, the Supreme Court had stayed the high court’s February 4 order quashing the chargesheet filed on June 30, 2023, against the eight HCS officers of the 2001 batch. The high court had held that the officers were neither named in the FIR nor investigated initially and that their names were added after 18 years without any proper probe.
The apex court, however, observed earlier on May 20 that mere delay could not be grounds to quash an investigation. “It could have been deferred, or whatever, but not quashed… Once it is quashed, under what provision could the IO carry on the probe again?” the Bench asked.
Indicating the seriousness of the allegations, the court said it could itself examine the answer sheets. “If we call everything here and we examine and find that there is something seriously wrong in the entire selection process… the manipulations, the overwriting, the cuttings, double handwritings, different handwritings in one answer sheet, we will cancel the entire selection,” it warned.
The judges also criticised the high court for allegedly stepping into the domain of investigators. Responding to submissions by senior advocates Mukul Rohatgi and Ranjit Kumar that the high court had examined answer sheets to verify the allegations, the Bench said, “Was the high court supposed to deal with the investigation when IO was seized of the matter? … The high court virtually took over the investigation.”
The case arose from a special leave petition filed by Congress leader Karan Dalal, who had originally challenged the recruitment process in 2002 alleging nepotism and irregularities in selections made by the Haryana Public Service Commission between 2001 and 2004.
The eight officers were among 64 candidates selected on September 4, 2002, for Haryana Civil Services and Allied Services posts.
In July 2022, their names were included by the state government in a panel sent to the UPSC for consideration for nomination to the IAS in the select list of 2020-21. The meeting of the UPSC was, however, postponed, and they were yet to be considered.
