The Punjab and Haryana High Court has held that former Haryana IAS officer Ashok Khemka was subjected to discriminatory treatment when the Centre denied him empanelment at the level of Additional Secretary/Secretary with the Government of India, despite granting relaxation of eligibility conditions to other similarly situated officers. The Bench also directed Khemka to be treated as empanelled Additional Secretary/Secretary for future assignments.
Allowing Khemka’s writ petition, Justices Harsimran Singh Sethi and Deepak Manchanda ruled that the Centre could not deny him the benefit of relaxation without demonstrating any distinguishing factor between him and other IAS officers who had been granted the same concession.
Khemka had challenged three orders passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal in July 2023, whereby his claim that he be treated as having been empanelled at the level of Additional Secretary/Secretary to the Government of India prior to his retirement was rejected. He was represented in the matter by advocate Shreenath A Khemka.
The principal issue before the court was whether empanelment at the rank of Additional Secretary/Secretary could be granted, despite the eligibility condition requiring an IAS officer to have served on Central deputation in the rank of Deputy Secretary or above for a minimum of three years.
The Bench noted that the applicable rules prescribed the three-year Central deputation requirement, but the Union government possessed the power to relax the condition. The court further recorded that such relaxations had been granted on several occasions to similarly placed IAS officers.
The judgment, among others, referred to the case of a 1992-batch Tamil Nadu cadre IAS officer granted empanelment as Additional Secretary/Secretary with the Government of India on March 7, 2022, through relaxation of the eligibility requirement, even after Khemka’s claim had been rejected in 2021.
The court added: “Once the Union of India exercises jurisdiction to relax the requirement of having worked on Central deputation for a minimum period of three years at the level of Deputy Secretary and above and such relaxation was even exercised in favour of similarly situated IAS officers, the non-exercise of the same will surely amount to discrimination.”
Holding that it violated Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution, the court added that the benefit of parity, in such circumstances, was required to be granted to the petitioner with the other similarly situated officers “so that no prejudice is caused to him”. However, it clarified that Khemka had already retired and empanelment primarily served the purpose of bringing an IAS officer on deputation with the Government of India. As such, no such benefit could be extended to him in service.
