High Court to Himachal govt: Shift ‘officers with doubtful integrity’ in 3 weeks

A division bench comprising Justice Kuldip Singh and Justice Dharam Chand Chaudhary,refusing to accept the government’s plea,said,“We are not going into the question whether the statement was made by learned Additional Advocate General on November 18 in the court inadvertently or not.

“But,in the light of the stand taken by the state itself for shifting officers of doubtful integrity from sensitive posts at the earliest opportunity,there should be no impediment for the state to shift officers of doubtful integrity as early as possible,” the bench ordered.

The court observed that if for doing so,some exercise needs to be done by the government to identify the posts where the 43 identified officers of doubtful integrity are to be shifted then it should be done and the officers shifted from sensitive to non-sensitive posts.

The order reads,“In case still some officers of doubtful integrity due to unavoidable reasons could not be shifted then spell out such reasons. The exercise be done in three weeks and the Chief Secretary to file an affidavit of compliance before December 27,2013.”

The court noted that the state government in its earlier affidavit had specifically mentioned that it had always made effort to avoid posting of such officers at sensitive posts. However,since the government does not always have non-sensitive posts in all cadres,it may become unavoidable to shift some officers to posts which cannot strictly be termed as non-sensitive.

The application,filed by Chief Secretary had sparked off a major controversy outside the court even as PCC president Sukhwinder Sukhu shot off a strongly worded letter to the Chief Minister,reminding the government about the Congress promise of ‘zero-tolerance’ against corruption. He asked the Chief Minister to take action against all tainted officers and hold time-bound inquiries beside shifting all of them from sensitive posts.

The BJP,too,had raised questions and asserted that there were more officers of doubtful intetrgity holding high positions but the government lacks courage to take action against them on corruption charges.