"Judiciary Should Leave It To Executive": Supreme Court Overturns Punjab-Haryana HC Order On IAS Ashok Khemka's Appraisal Report Case

In a significant ruling, the Supreme Court overturned a Punjab and Haryana High Court order regarding the performance appraisal report (PAR) of senior IAS officer Ashok Khemka.

Calling it a foundational principle of the Constitution, the bench of justices Vikram Nath and Satish Chandra Sharma said, "the judiciary must exercise restraint and avoid unnecessary intervention...".

Referring to past judgements, the court emphasised that constitutional courts should not substitute their views for those of administrative authorities, especially in matters requiring technical expertise.

The bench observed that the administrative oversight in the present case should have been left to the executive.

The bench said, "the process of evaluation of an IAS officer, more so a senior IAS officer entails a depth of expertise, rigorous and robust understanding of the evaluation matrix coupled with nuanced understanding of the proficiency required to be at the forefront of the bureaucracy."

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In this backdrop, it was concluded that the High Court erred in contrasting and comparing the remarks and overall grades awarded to Khemka by three authorities (the reporting authority, the reviewing authority and the accepting authority). 

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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