High Court freezes all adhoc appointments in Himachal

Shimla: Coming down harshly on ad-hoc appointments made by the government, the Himachal High Court on Wednesday directed the state to stop the practice and all further appointments be made only under permissible recruitment and promotion rules.

Hearing a petition by one Pankaj Kumar alleging that adhocism in appointments was prevalent in the state, a division bench consisting of Chief Justice Kurian Joseph and Justice Rajiv Sharma directed the government not to make any further adhoc or temporary appointments under whatever nomenclature in any department of the state.

“Any appointment, if required, shall be made only in terms of recruitment & promotion rules,” the bench directed.

Passing the order the court observed that over the past several years, making adhoc appointments appeared to attempts in making back door appointments by getting them regularized subsequently.

The court said that the Supreme Court had time and again directed through various judgments that appointment in public service shall only be regular appointment, but hundreds of litigations before the court were related to ad-hoc appointments made with varying terms and conditions.

Petitioner Kumar in his plea stated that appointments were being made on the basis of some vague memos, instructions and directions of the government.

He sought the courts intervention for discontinuing the practice of temporary appointments and for quashing of policies, schemes, circulars, instructions, directions and grant-in-aid rules in such cases.

The petitioner also sought a direction that the state be refrained from regularizing such appointments.

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