Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Feb 13: A bench of Supreme Court comprising Justice Kurian Joseph and Justice C Nagappan today issued notice to Prof Nutan K Resutra in an interim application filed by J&K Government through Education Department.
Through this application the Education Department is seeking vacation/modification of the interim order dated December 18, 2014 whereby Apex Court had stayed the operation of J&K High Court judgment dated December 11, 2014.
Vide this judgment, the State High Court had declared the appointment of Prof Nutan as bad and directed State to complete the disciplinary proceedings and suspend the operation of SRO appointing Prof Nutan as Chairman of J&K State Board of School Education.
After hearing Additional Solicitor General of India Maninder Singh with Advocate Ashok Mathur, Standing Councel of J&K, the Supreme Court directed Advocate Vishwanathan with Advocate Shren Khajuria, the counsels appearing for Prof Nutan, to file counter-affidavit to the interim application seeking vacation of the interim direction. The Apex Court allowed three weeks time for doing the needful and continued the interim order till then.
Additional Solicitor General of India Neeraj Krishan Koul appearing for Union of India submitted that Union of India has unnecessarily been arrayed as party respondent in this Special Leave Petition and there is no relief claimed against Union of India.
The Apex Court conceded the submission of ASGI and deleted Union of India from the array of respondents.
At this stage, Advocate Sheikh Shakeel Ahmed appearing for contesting respondent No.1/writ petitioner in J&K High Court Sheikh Mohd Shafi drew the attention of the bench towards WPPIL No.9/2012 out of which the present SLP has arisen and said that the WPPIL is listed before J&K High Court on Wednesday and the HC may construe that in view of the pendency of this SLP it will be appropriate to keep its hands off till the matter is decided in the Apex Court.
He further submitted that certain vital issues of wide public importance have been highlighted in the PIL including non-finalization of disciplinary proceedings in 147 cases, non-constitution of highest anti-graft body-State Accountability Commission and non-grant of sanction in corruption cases against the high-ups.
He prayed that the interim order dated December 18, 2014 be clarified to the extent that the High Court is allowed to hear the PIL on other issues except the issue of Prof Nutan.
Conceding the prayer of Advocate Ahmad, Supreme Court directed that the pendency of instant SLP would not be a bar for the J&K High Court to hear the PIL on other issues.
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