DEHRADUN: The Uttarakhand High Court on Wednesday issued notice to Chairman of Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) Justice L Narasimha Reddy, while hearing a petition of 2002 batch Indian Forest Services officer Sanjiv Chaturvedi.
The notice was issued by the division bench of acting chief justice Ravi Malimath and justice Alok Kumar Verma of the HC while hearing a petition stating that apart from openly being a litigant against the petitioner, the chairman had a long history of extreme personal bias against the officer as he repeatedly passed adverse orders against him without affording any opportunity of hearing.
Senior advocate Sudarshan Goel appeared for the petitioner in the virtual hearing. Next hearing of the matter has been scheduled on January 12, 2021.
Notices were also issued by the HC to the center through cabinet secretary, secretary, Department of Personnel & Training, Government of India, secretary, Ministry of Environment Forest & Climate Change, Union Public Service Commission and tate of Uttarakhand through Chief Secretary.
The Magsaysay Award winner IFS officer in his petition stated that the order dated December 4 2020, which Reddy passed as the chairman of the CAT, is in blatant violation of principles of natural justice – audi alteram partem.
The December 4 order by the CAT chairman directed transfer of a petition to the principal bench of the CAT in Delhi which was filed by Chaturvedi pertaining to empanelment of joint secretaries in the central government.
"On the day on which impugned order was passed, mike of counsel of the Petitioner was deliberated muted and the case was decided, in undue haste, without even recording the submissions/arguments of the Petitioner. Respondent No.6/7 (the CAT and the Chairman Reddy) passed orders only on the basis of submissions of counsel of respondent no.1 (Union of India) and no submissions of counsel of Petitioner were recorded as his mike was muted and so he was not audible and accordingly, the impugned order is liable to be set aside," said the petition.
At present Chaturvedi is posted as chief conservator of forests in research wing of Uttarakhand forest department in Haldwani city.
Interestingly, at the time of passing of the 'impugned orders', there were three pending litigations, directly between the IFS officer and CAT chairman Reddy.
Sanjiv Chaturvedi in his petition pointed out that Justice Reddy had also "passed sweeping observations in another case" on September 23 2020 which were purely personal in nature and highly defamatory in character and based on incorrect facts, just two months back.
"This was again in flagrant violation of principles of natural justice as the Petitioner was not even a party, in the above case. Going further, Respondent No. 6 (Reddy, as a chairman of the CAT) immediately sent the above mentioned order, which was full of disparaging remarks against the Petitioner, for widest possible media circulation, which reflects proven and deep rooted personal bias of Respondent No. 6 towards the Petitioner and extent to which he may go for causing all sort of injury to Petitioner and accordingly the impugned order is liable to be set aside," the petition added.
Chaturvedi also added in the petition that the chairman "had even castigated petitioner for approaching this Hon'ble High Court against his illegal orders, passed purely personal, unwarranted and highly defamatory observations against Petitioner behind his back, in a case, in which Petitioner was not even a party and had immediately circulated the same to media, so as to cause maximum possible injury to petitioner."
Terming the December 4 order against letter and spirit of Administrative Tribunal Act, 1985, the petition says that the ground taken by the CAT chairman, regarding its so called impact on the functioning of Central Government, is completely frivolous as there is no such category in the parent act.
"This is a completely artificial classification created by Respondent No.6/7 (CAT chairman Reddy) going beyond the parent statute namely Administrative Tribunal Act 1985, only to harass the Petitioner and hence the impugned order is liable to be set aside on this ground alone," said the petition.
The case dates back to February 2020 when Chaturvedi had filed a petition in the CAT in the backdrop of controversy over Padmashri awardee actor Manoj Bajpai's brother's lateral entry to one of the coveted posts in Indian bureaucracy last year.
The officer known for his corruption crusade alleged in the petition that the scheme for lateral entry into bureaucracy is flawed and biased.
Stating that the present system of recruitment of Joint Secretary level post through contract system is completely arbitrary and irrational, the petition said that the documents obtained under RTI Act, prima facie reveal certain very serious irregularities, which need to be investigated objectively by an appropriate agency.
Following this in August 2020, notices were issued by the CAT to Union Public Service Commission and Uttarakhand state government. The Allahabad bench of the CAT had also granted time to counsel of central government to 'seek instructions' including department of personnel training (DoPT) and MoEF&CC (Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change).
In September 2020, the center was given ten days’ time to file preliminary submissions by the CAT bench, after they raised the issue of maintainability and the bench fixed date of September 22, 2020 for disposing the issue of maintainability.
In a dramatic turn of events, the center on October 13, 2020 filed transfer petition requesting transfer of the case from Nainital Circuit Bench of Allahabad bench to Principal Bench, Delhi which was opposed by Chaturvedi.
Interestingly, Uttarakhand HC in August 2018 had set aside order dated July 27, 2018 passed by CAT chairman Justice Reddy with strong strictures and imposed a cost of Rs. 25,000 on the central government and its instrumentalities terming their attitude as ‘prima facie vindictive’ against the IFS officer.
The court had termed the orders as "vindictive" and also noted that the very grounds on which the stay was granted by the chairman, were incorrect as all the three cases were totally different. The court had also imposed fine of Rs 25,000 on central government. Later, the Supreme Court had doubled this fine on February 1, 2019 while upholding the HC's order.
Meanwhile, reacting to the HC order, on September 7, 2018, the chairman presiding over single bench of the CAT, in his order stated, "It appears that Section 25 of the Administrative TribunalsAct, 1985 was not brought to the notice of their Lordships. Section 25 confers exclusive powers on the Chairman of theTribunal to transfer any pending case from one Bench toanother, and the power to stay the further proceedings in suchmatters is incidental."
The chairman further remarked in the order, "Further, thenquestion as to how a writ petition could have been filed before Uttarakhand High Court challenging the order passed by Principal Bench of this Tribunal was also not examined, obviously because, the All India Institute of MedicalSciences, who filed this, was neither issued notice nor wasrepresented. The comments made in the order passed by the Uttarakhand High Court, in a way, are in the teeth of Section 25 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985."
Following this, Uttarakhand HC had issued notice to the chairman in February 2019. The Supreme Court stayed the proceedings of the contempt against the chairman on March 2019.