Bombay HC quashed the service extensions granted to PS Pasricha and DN Jadhav, stating that the government’s arbitrary decisions were not taken in public interest.
Says that the government’s ‘arbitrary’ decisions were not taken in public interest
MUMBAI: The Bombay HC on Friday quashed the service extensions granted to DGP PS Pasricha and police commissioner DN Jadhav, stating that the government’s “arbitrary” decisions were not taken in public interest.
Labelling the government’s decision as “devoid of valid and proper reasoning,” the court scrapped the November, 2007, order granting three-month extensions to Pasricha and Jadhav, who were to retire on November 30, 2007.
However, neither Pasricha nor Jadhav will have to step down from office immediately as the high court has stayed its order for three weeks on the government’s request. The extensions granted to the top cops lapse on February 29.
A public interest litigation (PIL) challenging the service extensions granted to the two top cops was filed by city social activists RR Tripathi and Gaurang Damani.
“Since the stay has been granted, the order will not affect this case in particular, but it will certainly ensure that such instances do not recur in future,” the petitioners’ lawyer YP Singh, a former police officer, said.
Chief justice Swatanter Kumar and justice JP Devadhar quashed the extensions for three reasons: one, the government had failed to substantiate the point that the police officers were indispensable; two, their extensions were done in public interest; and, three, they had pending assignments to complete within the extension period.
“An in-built element of service is that one has to superannuate at the prescribed age, or after the expiration of the extended period. This undisputedly infers that nobody in the state administration is indispensable,” the judges noted.
The court said it was not enough to claim that Pasricha and Jadhav had helped maintain law and order and had had a good service profile. These were not good enough grounds for bringing “their case within the
ambit of the rules,” the judges stated.
As per the All India Services (Death-cum-Retirement Benefits) Rules, 1958, officers retiring at the age of 60 can be granted a three-month extension with the centre’s sanction in public interest if they are “dealing with budget work or are full-time members of a committee which is to be wound up shortly.”
The court’s 59-page order stated that the proposal moved by the state government “does not satisfy the basic ingredients of the provision” under the service rules. The order added, “The obvious effect is that grant of extension to one denies right of consideration to a number of other senior officers who may be eligible to hold the post of DGP or CP in Mumbai.”
Slamming both the centre and the state for “arbitrary” decisions in recommending and granting the extensions, the court reminded them: “Fairplay and transparency in such administrative or executive actions is the sine qua non to exercise of power.”
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