Delhi High Court: In a present Public Interest Litigation (‘PIL’) filed for seeking relief of quo warranto qua the appointment of respondent 4 as Chairman-cum-Managing Director of National Small Industries Development Corporation Ltd. (‘NSIDC’), the Division Judge Bench of Manmohan Acting C.J.* and Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora. J., while dismissing the writ petition on having no merits, held that only non-appointees can assail the legality of the appointment of extension procedure.
In the present case, the respondent 4 was appointed as Chairman-cum-Managing Director of NSIDC pursuance to Advertisement issued by Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, Government of India (‘UOI’) dated 11-07-2023, the appointment was challenged on the ground that the same has been done in violation of Clause 5 of Annexure-1 of the said Advertisement.
It was contended by the petitioner that, Clause 5 of Annexure-1 of the said Advertisement stated the minimum length of service required in the eligible scale was one year for ‘internal candidates’. Whereas, two years for other candidates as on the date of advertisement of the post.
The respondent 4 not being an ‘internal candidate’ was required to fulfil the condition of having minimum length of service of two years in the eligible scale, which was not fulfilled by the respondent 4.
It was further stated by the petitioner that, despite respondent 4’s non-eligibility, he was nevertheless interviewed, apart from that the reason for relation of the criteria set out at Clause 5 of Annexure-1 had not been disclosed by the respondents.
The Court after perusal of facts and circumstances stated that, PIL was not maintainable in services matters and, while referring to Girjesh Srivastava v. State of M.P., , wherein it was held that, “in service matters only the non-appointees can assail the legality of the appointment procedure”, held that there was no merit in the present writ petition. Thereby, it stands dismissed.
[Saddam Ali v. Union of India, Writ Petition (C) 8373 of 2024 , decided on: 01-06-2024]
*Judgement Authored by: Acting Chief Justice Manmohan
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For Petitioner: Sanobar Ali Qureshi and Shobhna Sharma, Advocates.
For Respondents: Ripu Daman Bhardwaj, CGSC; Kushagra Kumar, Advocates.
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