By Our Staff Reporter
Nainital, 21 Jun: The Uttarakhand High Court today heard a PIL filed against illegal back door appointments made in the Assembly Secretariat since the formation of the state. This PIL has been filed by Congress leader Abhinav Thapar. While hearing the case, the division bench comprising Chief Justice Ritu Bahri and Justice Alok Kumar Verma directed the state government and the Assembly Secretariat to submit a response within three weeks on what action has been taken on the previous order given by the court. The next hearing of the case has been fixed on 16 July.
It may be recalled that, earlier, the court had directed the state government and the Assembly Secretariat to take action against the people involved in the backdoor recruitments made in the Assembly Secretariat and had directed the government to file an affidavit in this respect.
Thapar claims that no report has however been submitted by the government before the court, as yet.
During the hearing today, the state government and the secretariat again sought three weeks’ time from the court to submit the report. The court has given an additional three weeks’ time to both to submit the report and has fixed 16 July for the next hearing. Earlier, the court had directed the secretariat to submit a reply while directing to take action against the people involved in illegal recruitments carried out under the government order dated 6 February, 2003.
It may be recalled that Thapar has challenged the alleged backdoor recruitments, corruption and irregularities in the Vidhan Sabha Secretariat. In the PIL, he has claimed that the Vidhan Sabha has formed an inquiry committee and cancelled the recruitments made in the Vidhan Sabha Secretariat after the year 2016, but the appointments made before that have not been nullified. He has stressed that this scam has been going on ever since the formation of the state in the year 2000.
In the PIL, the court has been urged to order an inquiry under the supervision of a sitting judge of the High Court against those who got jobs through corruption in the Vidhan Sabha recruitment. The court has also been urged to direct the government to recover the salaries paid to those illegally appointed personnel. The PIL further claims that the government order of 6 February 2003, which permits ad-hoc appointments in the Vidhan Sabha Secretariat, is a violation of Article 14, 16 and 187 of the Constitution. In which every citizen has a provision for equal rights and recruitment as per rules for the government jobs. It also claims that illegal recruitments made in the Assembly Secretariat are a violation of the 1974 service rules of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly and the 2011 rules of the Uttarakhand Legislative Assembly.
