Chennai: The Madras High Court on Thursday set aside an order of Central Administrative Tribunal quashing appointment of senior woman IPS officer Letika Saran as Tamil Nadu DGP in November 2010 and held that there was no illegality in the government's decision.
Allowing Saran's petition, a division bench comprising justices Elipe Dharma Rao and M Venugopal said it was the prerogative of the state government to choose its police chief from a list of names recommended by the Empanelment Committee.
The CAT had quashed her appointment as DGP on a petition by IPS officer R Nataraj challenging the government's decision on the ground that he should be appointed to the post as he was senior to Saran and his name topped the list of three names selected by the committee.
Saran was first appointed state DGP on January 8, 2010 but Nataraj challenged it before the CAT on the ground that he was senior to Saran and that the process of selection and appointment to the post was not followed as per the principles laid down by the Supreme Court.
However, the CAT dismissed his plea and Nataraj moved the high court, which concluded that the dictum laid down by the apex court had not been followed and ordered a fresh selection to be done by an empanelment committee constituted by UPSC.
The committee on November 10, 2010 forwarded a list with the names of Nataraj, K Vijayakumar and Saran and on November 27, 2010 the state government appointed Saran as police chief.
On a fresh petition by Nataraj, CAT quashed the appointment of Saran and directed the government to consider Nataraj's name for the post of DGP. This was challenged by Saran in the high court.
The high court bench pointed out that the apex court had specifically observed that the DGP of the state "shall be selected by the state government from amongst the three senior most officers of the department, who have been empaneled for promotion to that rank by the UPSC".
"Therefore, being a post requiring high level of confidentiality and capacity to meet challenges of new heights every day, the state government is definitely having its own choice of selecting an individual from the panel of personnel prepared by the UPSC," they said adding they could not accept the argument by Nataraj that the government "has no say" in the matter of appointment of its own DGP.
Noting that they would have appreciated an argument by Nataraj had the state government appointed a person whose name did not figure in the list, the judges said they could not accept the submission that the government should not have exercised its choice from the panel of officers forwarded by the UPSC.
To the question whether empanelment itself would give any right for an officer to be appointed to the post for which he was empanelled, the Judges said their answer would be an emphatic "no".
They cited rulings of the Supreme Court that "inclusion in the panel of eligible officers confers no right to be promoted" and "putting a government servant's name in a panel for promotion confers only a right to be considered for promotion".
Referring to the Tribunal's observation that Saran was on leave and the post of DGP was lying vacant and hence had to be filled up on a permanent basis, the Bench held that Saran proceeding on leave would not create any right for Nataraj to get appointed to the post.
In fact, from the materials presented on record, she had proceeded on leave since stat assembly elections had been announced in Tamil Nadu and to facilitate the newly appointed DGP (Elections) to conduct the polls and pre-poll process smoothly, the judges said.
"This fact has been completely ignored by the Tribunal, which has resulted in its arrival of an illegal conclusion," the Bench said.
A complete perusal and analysis of all the materials placed on record would show 'no illegality or irregularity' had been committed at any stage in the appointment of Saran as DGP, the judges held adding that the tribunal was not justified in interfering with the appointment of Saran as DGP by the state government in concurrence with the state governor.
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