PANJIM, SEPT 22
Bombay High Court at Goa today asked the petitioner to delete names of two government officials from the list of respondents in a contempt petition for granting service extension to the services electrical inspector R A Ghali.
The division bench was hearing contempt petition filed by Anthony Rebello against Power Minister Aleixo Sequiera, Chief Electrical Engineer Nirmal Braganza, Power Secretary S Kumarswamy, Undersecretary Umeshchandra Joshi and Advocate General Subodh Kantak.
The bench said that since Nirmal and Umeshchandra are already served show cause notices in other similar contempt petition, their names be deleted from the present. The matter will be next heard on Monday along with other two similar contempt petitions.
In the present petition, the petitioner pointed out that Ghali has been appointed without following the Constitutional scheme as spelt out by the Supreme Court in its earlier judgment.
High Court on December 1, 2009 had granted leave for a period of five days to the Government in response to latter’s application seeking leave to extend Ghali’s appointment on November 21, 2009.
Government’s assurance to frame recruitment rules for the post of electrical inspector was not framed even as on April 20, 2010, Ghali “Exited services” as per the order of the High Court. This was followed by contempt on May 1, 2010, arguments for which were heard and its judgment was reserved on May 7.
Meanwhile, the Government in a decision re-appointed Ghali as electricity inspector on July 14, 2010 for a period till August 24, 2010 which was further extended to one-year till August 24, 2011.
