The High Court of Chhattisgarh ordered that there can be no extension of time granted for joining a Presiding officer post. Upholding the same, the Supreme Court observed that extension of time cannot be claimed as a matter of right while joining.
“Appointment was to provide effect for the petitioner to join within 30 days,” a bench comprising of Justice Vineet Saran and Aniruddha Bose ordered. The select list was supposed to be expired on January 5, 2011, but the petitioner did not even join after the deadline had passed. Thus petitioner not joining within the stipulated time disentitles him to be appointed for the post. Extension of not joining within the stipulated time cannot be claimed as a matter of right
The petitioner contended that the seats were vacant and based on the vacancy, the petitioner could still be appointed to the post. Upon petitioner’s counsel submission The Judge stated while dismissing the Special Leave Petition “The posts which are vacant were for 2014 for ones who were eligible to be appointed. Judicial power should be exercised judiciously.” Nilesh Kumar Pandey v. The State of Chattisgarh
In this case, the petitioner applied for the post of Presiding officer of the Labour court. On July 9, 2009, the Chhattisgarh Public Service Commission suggested Nilesh’s name be published on the select list. The appointment could not be made hence upon the state Government’s request the validity of the select list was extended till January 5, 2011.
An appointment order was issued to Nilesh on August 28, 2010, to join within 30 days and failure from that shall automatically have come to an end. On April 28, 2010, he made an application to the state of Chhattisgarh for an extension of his post which was rejected on June 12, 2014, on the grounds that the original list’s validity had expired and the joining period could not be extended.
Hence Nilesh (the petitioner) approached Chhattisgarh high court seeking quashing of order that was passed in 2014 on the ground that Nilesh’s appointment was subject to the outcome of writ petitions. The impugned order was further challenged on the ground that he was working as Welfare Officer at in Central Jail, Raipur and that, in order to join the post as Presiding officer he had to resign from his current position.
The Single Judge High court dismissed his writ on the ground that he was an uninterested person and fails to join the post as presiding officer, Labour court in spite of the expiry of the peremptory period. On June 24, 2019, a division bench comprising of Chief Justice RR Ramachandra Menon and Sanjay K Agrawal uploaded the single judge order in response to the challenge that “The petitioner has not acted responsibly in joining on the post and has taken a calculated chance by sitting on the fence awaiting the outcome of two writ petitions which were dismissed immediately after some time, is a finding of the fact-based on material available on record and there is no illegality or perversity found in the said finding.”
