Delhi HC refuses to entertain Puja Khedkar’s appeal against UPSC action
Stating that her plea was premature, a bench of justice Jyoti Singh granted Khedkar the liberty to approach the Central Administrative Tribunal.
The Delhi high court on Wednesday refused to entertain probationary Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Puja Khedkar’s petition against the Union Public Service Commission’s (UPSC) decision to cancel her provisional candidature and permanently debar her from all future examinations and selection procedures.
Stating that her plea was premature, a bench of justice Jyoti Singh granted Khedkar the liberty to approach the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT).
“It is premature. Any order of the court will be without jurisdiction. The petition is disposed of with liberty to the petitioner to approach the appropriate forum in accordance with law,” the bench said.
During the hearing, Khedkar, represented by senior advocate Indira Jaising, asserted that the UPSC had cancelled her client’s candidature and debarred her from appearing in the exams ‘ex parte’ (without hearing her) by way of issuing a press release and without serving an official order.
Seeking to quash the press release and urging the court to direct the commission from not acting upon the press release until the serving of the official order to client, Jaising argued that the press release was issued without the commission rejecting her application seeking extension of time to respond to July 18 show cause notice.
“It has been imposed on me, without serving an order,” Jaisingh argued. She added that the press release had a “domino effect” since it had not only resulted in registration of a first information report (FIR) against her client but also issuance of a show cause notice by the Department of Personnel Training (DoPT).
Jaising also argued that her client was ready to withdraw the petition, subject to the court granting her client liberty to approach CAT.
Objecting to the maintainability of the petition, the UPSC, represented by senior advocate Naresh Kaushik, argued that the press release was issued since the commission was not aware about Khedkar’s whereabouts and the same was an intimation to her.
“A press release is a notice to all who are not traceable. A press release is all about those aspects only and it’s not something extraneous to her conduct,” Kaushik added. He, however, added that the UPSC would communicate its order to Puja’s last known address and her email ID.
The Centre, represented by additional solicitor general (ASG) Chetan Sharma, added that Khedkar’s petition was “against the show cause notice” and “grossly premature.”
Consequently, the court disposed of the petition by granting Khedkar the liberty to approach “appropriate forum” and recording Kaushik’s statement on communicating the order to the latter.