Supreme Court sets aside HC order on higher ACR grade to IAS officer Ashok Khemka

In June 2017, the Chief Secretary, who was the reporting authority, had awarded Khemka, a 1991-batch IAS officer, an overall grade of 8.22.

IAS officer Ashok Khemka

The Supreme Court Monday said evaluating the competency of an IAS officer is a specialised domain and ought to be left to the executive, while setting aside the Punjab and Haryana High Court order upholding the higher grades given to IAS officer Ashok Khemka in his annual confidential report (ACR) under All India Services (Performance Appraisal Report) Rules, 2007.

“The overall grading and assessment of an IAS officer requires an in-depth understanding of various facets of an administrative functionary…” a bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Satish Chandra Sharma said. “This administrative oversight ought to have been left to the executive on account of it possessing the requisite expertise and mandate,” the court said, allowing the appeal by the Haryana government against the March 18, 2019, HC order.

In June 2017, the Chief Secretary, who was the reporting authority, had awarded Khemka, a 1991-batch IAS officer, an overall grade of 8.22. Subsequently, the Haryana Health Minister, who was the reviewing authority, upgraded his overall grade to 9.92. However, in December 2017, the Haryana Chief Minister, who was the accepting authority downgraded his overall grade to 9.

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Though he made representations against this, the accepting authority took no decision after which he moved the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) “seeking deletion of the remarks and overall grades recorded by the accepting authority; and restoration of the overall grades and remarks awarded by the reviewing authority”.

The CAT dismissed his application after which he approached the HC, which set aside the CAT order and restored the overall grades and remarks awarded by the reviewing authority.

The bench also noted that “the accepting authority is yet to take a decision on the underlying representation (of Khemka)” and directed it “to take a decision…within a period of 60 days from the date of pronouncement of the judgment”.

Ananthakrishnan G

Ananthakrishnan G. is a Senior Assistant Editor with The Indian Express. He has been in the field for over 23 years, kicking off his journalism career as a freelancer in the late nineties with bylines in The Hindu. A graduate in law, he practised in the District judiciary in Kerala for about two years before switching to journalism. His first permanent assignment was with The Press Trust of India in Delhi where he was assigned to cover the lower courts and various commissions of inquiry. He reported from the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court of India during his first stint with The Indian Express in 2005-2006. Currently, in his second stint with The Indian Express, he reports from the Supreme Court and writes on topics related to law and the administration of justice. Legal reporting is his forte though he has extensive experience in political and community reporting too, having spent a decade as Kerala state correspondent, The Times of India and The Telegraph. He is a stickler for facts and has several impactful stories to his credit. ... Read More

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