In a significant ruling that is likely to trigger a face-off between the judiciary and the political executive in Odisha, the Cuttack Bench of the State Administrative Tribunal (SAT) has quashed the appointments of as many as 378 Odisha Civil Service (OCS) officials.
On the basis of an Odisha Public Service Commission (OPSC) advertisements of 2006, as many as 73 OAS (Class-I), 207 OFS (Class-I) and 98 officers in other allied cadres as Class-II officers were given appointment by the State Government in June 2010.
But adjudicating a batch of applications filed by one Surabhi Mohanty and others, the SAT headed by its chairman Justice (Retd) Nityananda Prusty and administrative member SN Das have declared the appointments of the 378 officials as “illegal’ and “void”.
The petitioners had challenged the appointments stating that the 2006 advertisement had invited applications from eligible candidates to fill up only Class-II posts of different cadres having basic salary of Rs 6,500. But when the appointments were made in 2010, some officers joined as Class-I officers with basic salary of Rs 15,600 and others as Class-II officers with starting salary of Rs 9,300.
“How could the Government appoint the selected candidates in two separate grades when all of them were selected on the basis of a common advertisement and a series of common examinations,” the petitioners had questioned.
Refuting the contentions of the petitioners, the Government had argued before the tribunal that there was nothing wrong in giving appointments to OAS and OFS officers as Class-I cadre as during the runoff to recruitment, the cadres of OAS and OFS officers had changed from Class-II to Class-I.
“There was no change in the cadre status for other allied services, and, hence, 98 candidates were recruited in allied services as per the advertisement,” the Government affidavit had said urging the tribunal to quash the petitions on the ground that they lacked merit.
But refusing to buy the argument of the Government, the SAT observed, “Without advertisement for selection to higher post and higher scale of pay, the appointments made on the basis of the 2006 advertisement are illegal and void as they violate Articles 14 and 16 of the Indian Constitution.”
It may be mentioned that taking up a PIl in this regard, the Odisha High Court in October 2012 had suggested the petitioners to approach the appropriate forum (SAT) since it was a question of service matter.