HC directs ACB to initiate enquiry in selection of Anganwari worker

02/02/2023

JAMMU, Feb 1: Justice Rahul Bharti of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh High Court in a service writ petition, directed Anti-Corruption Bureau Rajouri to undertake an enquiry in the matter for the purpose of ascertaining the culpability, departmental or criminal, if any, on the part of the official respondents who then constituted the Selection Committee and on the part of the respondent no. 7 Raj Kumar. Court further directed that in case, if any, prima facie, factual basis is found to be there for booking the erring officials and the respondent no. 7, then to take or propose requisite legal course of action against the erring officials/persons involved.
This significant judgment has been passed in a petition filed by Ranjan Devi who is a below poverty line belonging young woman having husband with 50% upper limb permanent disability. The petitioner, who was supposed to be engaged as being at number one position in the panel, as an Anganwadi Worker on meager monthly honorarium, got duped of her said entitlement by contrivance on the part of Sarpanch of the village to get his daughter-in-law to be engaged in which three government officials lend their full role and the petitioner has chosen to fight for her right and this writ petition is for seeking justice in her cause.
Justice Rahul Bharti after hearing Sr. Adv Surinder Kour with Adv Manpreet Kour for the petitioner, while allowing the petition observed that Power, be it legislative, judicial and/or executive, is inherently chaste in its very existence, composition and character-wise, meant for amelioratory end or purpose of the State and its subjects but has an ever attending risk of abuse in course of its use and exercise at the hands of its repository ending up in a produce of perversion. To put it in a simple sentence an end situation of an abuse of power is in justice.
Justie Rahul Bharti observed that this Court has no iota of doubt that the petitioner became the victim of foul-play at the end of the respondent no. 7 to which active and passive facilitation was lend by the three member Selection Committee comprising of the officials of the time who served as the Child Development Project Officer ICDS Project Sunderbani, the District Social Welfare Officer Rajouri and the Programme Officer, ICDS Project Rajouri. The basis for this Court to confirm its observation is that the selection panel was prepared on 06.02.2012 in terms of the panel notice no. POR/ICDS/807-08/2012 dated 06.02.2012, as referred above, and before that it was not in any manner possible for the petitioner, who is a middle pass BPL category woman, to know beforehand in November, 2011 that it is she who was going to be number one candidate whereas the respondent no. 6 and the other applicant were to be behind her. Thus, the coming into picture of an affidavit dated 24.11.2011 allegedly attributed to the petitioner, even if the signatures of the petitioner on the said affidavit are genuine, cannot be said to be an act of the petitioner being conscious of the contents of the affidavit, its import and the effect and the purpose for which it was to be used.
Court further observed that the panel no. POR/ICDS/807-08/2012 dated 06.02.2012 bears headline as "MERIT LIST OF CANDIDATES WHO HAVE APPLIED FOR THE POST ANGANWADI WORKER IN RESPECT OF ICDS PROJECT SUNDERBANI IN RESPONSE TO THE ADVERTISEMENT NOTICE NO: POR/ICDS/ADV/10/383 DATED 18.06.2010." Thus what was known only to the three member selection committee in terms of the final position of the candidates was already known to the respondent no. 7 who activated his machination to play deception upon the petitioner as is evident from the very text of the affidavit itself in which the petitioner in November, 2011 is assuming herself to be the number one candidate and tendering her abandonment in favour of the second candidate, which incidentally in terms of the merit list prepared on 06.02.2012 came to be the Kavita Rani respondent no. 6. It is in this context that the act of the respondent no. 7 in identifying the petitioner with respect to the attestation of the alleged affidavit of the petitioner before the Tesildar Executive Magistrate 1st Class, Sunderbani carries significance and is a pointer to the fact that the respondent no. 7 was enjoying very active feed-back of information from the end of the said three member Selection Committee of the officers aforementioned for the purpose of somehow managing the ouster of the petitioner from the game for facilitating the engagement of the respondent no. 6 as Anganwadi Worker for Anganwadi Centre Ghai Panyas.
The aforesaid connivance at the end of the members of the Selection Committee and the respondent no. 7 was contrived and corrupt in nature and intent so as to deprive the petitioner of her merit based entitlement and bestow wrongful gain in favour of the respondent no. 6, who as being anganwadi worker came to earn honorarium on the basis of her engagement fraudulently acquired. This Court cannot lend any legitimacy to this fraud and as such the engagement of the respondent no. 6 has to be held and is held to be null and void ab initio, and as such, is set aside, Court ordered".
Court further ordered that though the immediate consequence of setting aside of engagement of the respondent no. 6 as anganwadi worker for Anganwadi Centre Ghai Panyas ought to follow with the recovery of the entire amount of honorarium paid all along with effect from the date of engagement of the respondent no. 6 as such, but that would be amounting to punish a person who herself was not privy to the fraud which was orchestrated by the respondent no. 7 and the three member Selection Committee comprising of the officials of the time. Thus, this Court cannot dispense with the call of the situation to bring under scanner the role of the officers of the time along with that of the respondent no. 7 in enacting the fraud and for this directs the Anti-Corruption Bureau Rajouri to undertake an enquiry in the matter for the purpose of ascertaining the culpability, departmental or criminal, if any, on the part of the official respondents who then constituted the Selection Committee and on the part of the respondent no. 7. In case, if any, prima facie, factual basis is found to be there for booking the erring officials and the respondent no. 7, then to take or propose requisite legal course of action against the erring officials/persons involved.
Court further ordered that the petitioner is held entitled to be engaged as an Anganwadi Worker for Anganwadi Centre Ghai Panyas, Panchayat Kangri Upper, Block Sunderbani and for this requisite order of engagement of the petitioner be issued either by the Director Social Welfare Department, Jammu, or by directing the concerned competent official to issue the same within a period of two months from the date of passing of this judgement. The engagement of the petitioner as Anganwadi Worker shall be deemed to be with retrospective effect on notional basis.

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