HC suggests amending circular on appointment of Ministers' PS

Delhi High Court today said the Centre's circular on appointment of personal secretaries (PS) by NDA ministers would lead to people being identified as loyal to a particular political party and suggested modifying it.
"It (circular) would mean people are being identified as loyal to a particular party," a bench of justices Badar Durrez Ahmed and Sanjeev Sachdeva said.
The bench suggested to Additional Solicitor General Sanjay Jain to "think about modifying the circular".
The court was hearing a plea challenging a June 2014 circular which said that a person, who has been attached as a personal office staff with a union minister for the last 10 years, should not be appointed by the ministers of the present NDA government.

Its observation came after the government said the circular was issued "as an administrative act amongst themselves (ministers)".
"The government may have wanted a clean slate," the central government standing counsel, Akshay Makhija, told the court. As per the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), the circular was applicable to personal secretaries, additional personal secretaries and officers on special duty.

During the hearing, the court said the ministers were free to appoint whomsoever they wished as a personal secretary but observed that the circular should not have been issued as it was not necessary.
It also questioned how the petitioner, NGO Society for Voice of Human Rights and Justice, was concerned and said no minister or person eligible to be appointed as a personal secretary has approached the court aggrieved by the circular.

"It is the prerogative of a minister to appoint a personal secretary. He can do it. If he is aggrieved he will come to court. How are you concerned," the court asked but said "in principle, you (petitioner) are right".
The court, thereafter, listed the matter for hearing on August 26.