Irregularities were found in recruitment of staff, says Guj HC

The Registrar General of the Gujarat High Court has filed an affidavit admitting that there were irregularities in recruitment of its class-IV employees.
The affidavit was submitted yesterday before the high court judge Sonia Gokani based on the pleas filed by around 41 employees of the HC who had been sacked amid allegations that their appointments were made by flouting norms and breached the Supreme Court guidelines over appointment of court staff.
The appointments had been made in May this year during the tenure of former acting Chief Justice V M Sahai.
After going through the 100-page affidavit, which did not name Sahai but only said the recruitment was done at the time of the then acting chief justice, the high court today posted the next hearing in the case on November 3.

94 candidates had been appointed for the posts of peons in the high court allegedly without issuing any public advertisement.
In September, the high court had cancelled the allegedly irregular recruitment of 94 class-IV posts.

41 of these employees had challenged the decision and filed petitions before the court stating that neither in the show cause notice nor in the order of termination has it been mentioned that the then acting chief justice allegedly exercised powers of appointment on malafide considerations.
A high court judges committee was formed to probe into the case, which had issued show-cause notices to the appointed candidates after irregularities were found in the recruitment.

In August, a city-based RTI activist Ajay Prajapati had filed an affidavit before the high court against these appointments.