HP govt urges HC to modify its orders on 'tainted' officials

The Himachal Pradesh government today appealed to the high court to "recall or modify" its orders to transfer 43 officers of doubtful integrity from sensitive posts.
In an affidavit filed by officiating chief secretary P Mitra, the government said it was always its effort to avoid posting of tainted officers in sensitive posts. But "since non-sensitive posts are not there in all cadres, it may at times become unavoidable to assign some officers in posts, which cannot strictly be termed as non-sensitive," he added.
A division bench comprising acting Chief Justice Mansoor Ahmad Mir and Justice Kuldip Singh fixed the next hearing on December 6.

The Himachal Pradesh High Court, while hearing former drug controller Sher Singh Thakur's plea to set aside the departmental proceedings against him after he was convicted for corruption in June 2011, had sought a list of government officials with doubtful integrity.
Referring to the November 18 orders, Mitra said the additional advocate general's assurance to shift 43 officers of doubtful integrity from sensitive to non-sensitive posts were made "inadvertently" and "no such assurance was made in the affidavit filed by him on November 16".
"Only details of competent authorities, consulted while posting such officers on sensitive posts, were given in the affidavit," he said.

Earlier, a division bench of Chief Justice A M Khanwilkar and Justice Kuldip Singh had on November 14 directed the chief secretary to file an affidavit listing the names of "tainted" officials and their postings.
Expressing displeasure over the department secretaries not furnishing information to the chief secretary on whether the posting of tainted officers to sensitive posts was with the concurrence and approval of the highest authority, the bench had directed the secretaries to furnish the information within a day.