Haryana Staff Selection Commission in high court's contempt loop for ‘manipulative' wording in affidavit
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Chandigarh: The Punjab and Haryana high court has issued a show-cause notice to the Haryana Staff Selection Commission (HSSC) for "concealment" and being "manipulative" about its wording in an affidavit filed regarding the verification of documents of candidates selected for the post of junior engineer (JE).
Upset over HSSC's action, the bench observed that courts generally tend to accept affidavits filed by responsible officers at face value. The instant case, if at all, is an eye-opener that even responsible officers fail to live up to the confidence and trust which courts repose in them, said the high court. "Clearly, it was a mischievous attempt on the part of the commission to deliberately choose misleading words to portray compliance despite being aware that the needful was not done.
It is indicative of the extent to which statutory bodies attempt to distort facts to defeat justice," the court observed in its detailed order while indicting HSSC for contempt.
Justice Vinod Bhardwaj passed these orders while hearing a matter related to the selection of JE (civil) conducted by HSSC.
The petitioners, in this case, sought directions to make a comparison of biometric signatures of the shortlisted candidates for the post of JE (civil) on their OMR sheets with the specimen signatures obtained.
by Taboola
by Taboola
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The directions were sought to oust the menace of large-scale impersonation in written exams.
During the hearing, the court noticed that earlier in 2017 and 2018 too, it had ordered the commission to conduct a verification of documents of all candidates to rule out any malpractice.
However, in its reply dated March 15, 2023, the HSSC informed the court that process of document verification was undertaken in respect of all selections.
However, on examining HSSC's reply, the HC noticed that the said process was ignored completely with respect to selections for the post of JE.
After hearing all parties, the HC observed that prima facie, officials in the HSSC were guilty of having committed contempt of court and disobeying specific directions with impunity. "Needless to mention that the obligation to carry out biometric verification was not an executive decision, but was consequent upon a judicial order. In the absence of any such authority conferred upon the HSSC to sub-delegate such functions to the state govt, it was never open to HSSC to wash its hands off the performance of the said obligation by mere incorporation of a clause in the letter of recommendation," observed Justice Bhardwaj in its detailed order.
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