Sunday, 16 October 2022 | PNS | NAINITAL/DEHRADUN
In a major relief to the terminated ad hoc employees of the Vidhan Sabha, the Uttarakhand High Court has ordered a stay on their termination orders. In the order the single bench of Justice Manoj Kumar Tiwari expressed dissatisfaction at the process of their removal and observed that the employees were not given a chance to explain their position. The court stated that the employees were not given any prior notice for removal. Hearing the petition filed by Bhupendra Bisht, Babita Bhandari and others the HC directed the Vidhan Sabha secretariat to file its response within four weeks while staying the terminations ordered on September 27, 28 and 29. In its order the HC stated that these employees will continue in their earlier positions. If needed, the Assembly secretariat can start the process for regular appointments. The matter will be taken up for hearing next on December 19.
More than 102 of the terminated ad hoc employees had filed petitions in the HC challenging their termination. Counsels for the petitioners informed the court that their services were terminated by the Assembly speaker citing public interest. However, there was neither mention of the reason for their termination in the order nor were their explanations sought. Stating that the termination orders were against the rules, the counsels said that backdoor appointments were made to 396 posts in the Assembly secretariat between 2002 and 2015 and these have been regularised. Those appointed on ad hoc basis till 2014 were regularised after less than four years of service while the petitioners were not regularised even after six years of service even though they were to be regularised after six months of service, as per the rules. The petitioners’ counsels stated that their appointments had been challenged through a public interest litigation in 2018 but the court had ruled in their favour and held their appointments to be valid. The counsel for the Vidhan Sabha stated that the appointments in question were found to have been made through the backdoor. These persons were appointed on an ad hoc basis and their service was terminated on the same basis, he stated.
It will be recalled that the Vidhan Sabha speaker Ritu Khanduri had appointed a three-member committee headed by former bureaucrat DK Kotia to investigate the controversial appointments made in Vidhan Sabha during the tenure of past speakers. In its report the committee found that the appointments were made in gross violation of all norms. It said that no selection committee was set up for making the ad hoc appointments, no advertisement was issued, no competitive examinations were held, the names of eligible candidates were not sought from the employment exchange and no applications were invited. Observers point out that the stay imposed by the Uttarakhand HC on the terminations of the ad hoc employees is an embarrassment for the Vidhan Sabha secretariat. It is pertinent to mention here that The Pioneer in its edition dated September 28, 2022 had reported that the Vidhan Sabha secretariat had failed to follow the necessary procedure required in removal of temporary employees from the government service. The termination of service of any ad hoc or temporary employee is governed by the Uttaranchal Temporary Government Servants (termination of service) Regulation -2003. According to this regulation a temporary employee can be terminated by the appointing authority on issuance of one month notice to the employee concerned which was not done in the case of these employees.
