Court tells state respondent to respond by May 9
Source: Chronicle News Service

Imphal, May 06 2022: The Manipur High Court has directed the state respondent in a writ petition filed against filling up of a post in State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT), to appear before the Court on May 10 if they fail to file the counter affidavit by May 9 .

The writ petition (C) no 1210 of 2018, which was filed jointly by Sukham Premjit and Chingangbam Sanjoy, mentioning Manipur Government represented by commissioner/secretary (SCERT), director (SCERT), commissioner/secretary (DP), MPSC through its secretary and Jim Golden Thingujam as respondents, was heard in the court of Justice MV Muralidaran.

According to the petition, the appointment of (respondent no 5) Jim Golden Thingujam as joint director of SCERT is unconstitutional.

Respondent no 1 was earlier posted as a lecturer at Ramlal Paul Higher Secondary (government school) .

On May 10, 1999, he was utilised as the joint director of SCERT and later, transferred to the post.

In 2002, he was absorbed along with his post in his grade pay in the SCERT Department.

The producer post in SCERT was re-designated as joint director, without any changes in the recruitment rules of the producer post.

However, the post of a higher secondary school lecturer transferred with post and absorbed in SCERT is not one of the feeder posts for promotion to the post of Joint Director in the Department.

Thus, the petitioners made a prayer to the Court to direct the official respondents to remove respondent no 5 from the post.

After thoroughly examining the petition and the affidavits submitted by the respondents, the court had issued a quo-warranto on February 28, 2020, observing that appointment of respondent no 5 to the post of joint director is unconstitutional and directed respondent nos.1 to 4 to remove respondent no 5 from the post.

On April 24, 2021, petitioner Sukham Premjit filed a contempt case against M Harekrishna and others as respondents in connection with the petition.

In this regard, the private respondent submitted a miscellaneous application requesting to be added in the party respondent, which the Court accepted.

Although the hearings of the case were postponed from time to time, the state respondent did not submit any counter affidavit till date, which is in contempt of the Court.

Thus, the Court postponed the matter to May 9 and directed the state respondent i.e., respondent no 1 to submit the counter affidavit by the said date, failing which they have to appear before the Court on May 10 .

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