Recruitment case: Replies sought from Registrar General, govt

The Gujarat High Court today sought replies from its Registrar General and the state government in a plea filed by around 41 former employees of the high court against the termination of their services.
The class IV employees were among the 94 persons, whose services were terminated after the alleged irregularities in their appointments made by former acting high court Chief Justice V M Sahai, came to light.
Justice Sonia Gokani today heard their petition and directed the state government and the Registrar General to file their replies and posted the matter for hearing on October 28.
The employees, who were sacked from class-IV posts of the high court, had moved a plea before the court against their termination on October 17.

In their, the petitioners said 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 mala fide considerations.
"Sahai exercised power of appointment for meeting the immediate exigency, which arose due to order of the Supreme Court as selection, promotion and appointment were to be completed before July 31, 2015," the petition said.

Stating the petitioners were not given opportunity of being heard in the matter, the petition said, "It seems as if everything was pre-determined right from the stage of issuing show cause notice till the termination order was issued and therefore also, such order, being illegal, deserves to be quashed and set aside."

In September, the HC had cancelled the alleged irregular recruitment of 94 class-IV posts made by Sahai. As many as 94 candidates were appointed for the posts of peons in the high court by Sahai allegedly without issuing any public advertisement.
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 over the appointments.