Appointment of two judges will not be canceled
Shimla. In a major relief to two civil judges selected under the Himachal Pradesh Judicial Services, the Supreme Court refused to cancel their appointments. The State High Court had accepted the petitions challenging their appointments and canceled their selection and appointment. Although the Supreme Court upheld the decision of the State High Court as legally correct, but keeping in mind the fact of their long service of more than nine years, it did not consider it appropriate to remove them from the judicial service. According to the case, the State High Court had rejected the appointments of two civil judges, declaring them illegal. This decision was challenged by both the applicants in the Supreme Court. The division bench of the High Court had given its decision to cancel the appointments of civil judges Vivek Kayth and Akanksha Dogra. Both the judges were HPJS officers of the year 2013 batch. While disposing of the cases, the court had found that the appointments of both the judges were made against posts for which no advertisement was given. On filling these posts without advertisement, the court warned Himachal Pradesh Public Service Commission not to commit such negligence in future.
On February 1, 2013, the State Public Service Commission invited applications through advertisement to fill eight vacant posts of Civil Judges. Of these, six posts were already vacant and two posts were to be vacant in future. After coming out with the final results, the Commission recommended the appointment of a total of eight candidates to the government and also prepared a list of other successful candidates. Meanwhile, two additional posts of civil judges were created in the state. The Public Service Commission started the process of filling these two posts from the select list and recommended the appointment of Vivek Kayath and Akanksha Dogra. The government had also given them appointments. While canceling the appointments of both, the court said that it was necessary by law to advertise these newly created posts, so that candidates having other qualifications also get a chance to compete for these posts. The court had made it clear in the decision that due to the cancellation of the appointments of these judges, these posts should be considered as vacancies for the year 2021 and the process of filling them should be done as per the law. The Supreme Court upheld the High Court’s decision as legal, but rejected the orders to cancel the appointments of both the judges, keeping in mind their nine-year long service.
