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HC quashes fast track court ad hoc judges’ appointment

CUTTACK: The Orissa High Court on Thursday quashed appointment of seven ad hoc additional judges of fast track courts.

“They were selected on the basis of an impugned selection procedure and hence their appointments are quashed,” said a High Court bench comprising Chief Justice I.M. Quddusi and Justice B.N. Mohapatra. The seven judges include S.R. Bahidar, S.K. Das, B.N. Mishra, P.K. Karna, B.K. Chand, S.K. Ray and S. Prabahkar Rao. These judges were appointed in April 2004 and their appointments were ratified by the full-judge bench of the High Court.

The bench also set aside the full court’s decision to reduce the qualifying mark in the written examination that was made to facilitate the appointment of these judges.

Terming the selection procedure was made on the basis of an ‘invalid’ and ‘incomplete’ advertisement, the bench further directed to prepare a fresh appointment list on the basis of the original advertisement and not to consider the career marks and period of practice of the candidates while preparing the seniority list of the selected candidates as they were not mentioned in the original advertisement.

On the basis of an advertisement published in 2003 by the High Court Registrar (administration), 15 judges were appointed against an unspecified number of posts under the Orissa Judicial Service (Special Recruitment of Rules-2001) as per the direction of the Supreme Court. The recruitment was done through a competitive examination comprising written and viva voce test held between December 2003 and February 2004.

Later, the selection process of judges was challenged in the High Court two practicing advocates, Madhumita Das and Kasinath Rout, who were also candidates for the advertised posts. The High Court had earlier quashed the appointment of these judges. But the matter was challenged again in Supreme Court. Following the direction of the apex court, the Orissa High Court had taken up the matter recently.

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