HC refuses to entertain deficient application by PPSC chairman

Interestingly,in the ten page application filed by Sinha to be impleaded as party to the PIL filed by Gill against the PPSC,his name has been mentioned even once. Expressing surprise and disapproval over the incomplete application,the Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Mukul Mudgal and Justice Jasbir Singh questioned Shergill who the applicant was.

“Who is the applicant?” Justice Jasbir Singh questioned Himmat Singh Shergill who filed the application on behalf of Sinha. Shergill submitted that the applicant (Sinha) was the chairman of the PPSC. “So what! Where is his name? Have you mentioned his name anywhere?” Chief Justice Mudgal questioned the lawyer.

The Bench directed the lawyer to read the application. In his defence,Shergill submitted that the affidavit filed by Sinha mentions his name.

“The entire application does not mention his name. To know the name of the applicant one has to go to the affidavit!” Justice Jasbir Singh quipped.

Refusing to entertain the application,the Chief Justice told Shergill to come up with a better application. “You better come back with a better application with full particulars,” the Chief Justice told the lawyer. The application was dismissed as withdrawn.

On April 20,questioning the integrity,objectivity and impartiality of the selection of doctors made more than a year back by the Punjab Public Service Commission (PPSC),Gill had moved the High Court. Gill,in his PIL,had not made Sinha a party to the PIL.

Gill had submitted that “Punjab is not the only state to witness the degradation,devaluation and subversion of the Public Service Commission by inner corruption; but surely the grim experience of the Ravi Sidhu Commission,an experience the consequences of which the constitutional and legal system in the state is still grappling with,cannot be allowed or suffered to be periodically replicated”.

A similar petition filed by Sinha prior to Gill is already pending before the High Court. “Taking a high moral ground”,Sinha had demanded CBI probe into the matter maintaining that all the allegations leveled in the newspaper reports are “vague”.

Maintaining that Gill was not informed about the petition filed by him,Sinha through his lawyer Shergill had filed an application today to be impleaded as party to the PIL. The lawyer will now file the application afresh.