The Supreme Court on Tuesday deferred the hearing on a petition challenging the Punjab and Haryana High Court order quashing 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 posted the matter for hearing on July 21 after Haryana senior Additional Advocate General Lokesh Sinhal informed it that the state’s Advocate General was suffering from typhoid.
Questioning the high court’s order quashing the chargesheet the top court had on May 20 asked the Investigating Officer of the case to appear before it on May 26 “along with the relevant material available with him”.
The bench had also requested the Haryana Advocate General to assist it in the matter.
Questioning the manner in which the high court dealt with the case, the bench had said, “Why has the high court not decided these matters which have been pending for the past 15 years?” It 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.
“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.
It had noted 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 had asked.
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 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 UPSC for consideration for nomination to IAS in the select list of 2020-21. The meeting of UPSC was, however, postponed, and they were yet to be considered.
