Himachal HC quashes CM-approved extension of PWD Engineer-in-Chief, orders Screening Committee by 11 November
Justice Vivek Singh Thakur and Justice Ranjan Sharma found that a promotion file ready for the Screening Committee was parked with a Please speak note while a parallel file carried the Chief Minister approval through in a single day, with no public interest shown and the notes of the Department itself pointing the other way.
The Himachal Pradesh High Court has quashed the six-month extension of service granted to Narinder Pal Singh, Engineer-in-Chief of the Himachal Pradesh Public Works Department, and directed him to relinquish charge forthwith. A Division Bench of Justice Vivek Singh Thakur, who wrote the judgment, and Justice Ranjan Sharma held that the notification of 28 April 2026 was illegal, arbitrary and void ab initio. The State was ordered to revive and conclude by 11 November 2026 the Screening Committee process it had set in motion in April and then closed, and the court held that the petitioner, Chief Engineer Narinder Paul Singh Chauhan, if found suitable, must be promoted from 1 May 2026 with seniority, pay fixation and arrears, because the principle of no work, no pay cannot be applied to a man kept out of a post by the illegal action of the respondents.
Two engineers, one post, nearly the same name
The petitioner and the fourth respondent share almost identical names, and the judgment takes care to tell them apart at the outset: the man who received the extension is Narinder Pal Singh; the man who challenged it is Narinder Paul Singh Chauhan. Chauhan holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering. He joined the department as a Junior Engineer on 31 August 1992, became an Assistant Engineer in Class-I gazetted rank in October 1996, was promoted Executive Engineer on an ad hoc basis on 26 November 2009 and later regularised, became Superintending Engineer on 1 May 2018 and Chief Engineer on 23 January 2023. He has more than 28 years in gazetted rank and is posted as Chief Engineer, Mandi Zone.
The post above Chief Engineer is Engineer-in-Chief. By a Screening Committee decision of 2 November 2002, that post is filled on merit with due regard to seniority, on the pattern used for Director General of Police and Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, from among Chief Engineers with at least 28 years of gazetted service including five years combined as Superintending Engineer and Chief Engineer. Chauhan met every criterion. He stood at serial 3 of the seniority list; the officer at serial 1 had already been promoted Engineer-in-Chief and the officer at serial 2 retired in March 2026, leaving him the senior-most eligible officer when the incumbent was due to superannuate on 30 April 2026.
Instead of a promotion, the department issued a notification on 28 April 2026 extending Singh’s service for six months, from 1 May to 31 October 2026, in relaxation of Rule 56(d) of the Fundamental Rules. Chauhan moved CWP No. 8809 of 2026 through Mr Onkar Jairath, Senior Advocate, with Mr Anshul Jairath and Mr Piyush Mehta, seeking to quash the notification and to have the Screening Committee convened. He also placed on record, obtained under the Right to Information Act, the noting portion of the departmental file from the section level up to the Chief Minister, and a Government communication of 7 April 2026 directing all departments not to grant extensions, re-employment or re-engagement after superannuation.
What the State and the incumbent said
The State’s reply, filed on the affidavit of the Secretary (Personnel), did not deny the petition. It admitted paragraphs 3 to 14 and rested on a short preliminary account: the Department of Personnel, as cadre controlling authority, had put up a file to convene the Screening Committee for the post falling vacant on 1 May 2026; in the meantime, by a U.O. letter of 28 April 2026, the Additional Principal Private Secretary-cum-Special Secretary to the Chief Minister intimated that the Chief Minister had approved a six-month extension; the competent authority approved it; and the notification issued the same day in the public interest. The reply conceded that this was done despite the instructions of 7 April 2026. Advocate General Anup Rattan, appearing with Mr Ramakant Sharma, Mr Sushant Keprate and Mr Raj Negi, later placed on record instructions of 23 July 2026 recording that the Cabinet, on 20 July, had approved telling the court that the Government had taken a conscious decision and that any promotion could happen only after the extension expired.
In argument the Advocate General said the promotion process had been halted because no vacancy existed, that the petitioner had a right to be considered but no fundamental right to promotion, that the conditions in Chapter 22 of the Handbook on Personnel Matters were directory rather than mandatory, that the retiring officer was of outstanding merit, and that all facts had been placed before the competent authority at notes N-61 to N-64 before approval at N-70. The Chief Minister, he said, was the competent authority under the Rules of Business, and the decision-making process could be challenged but not the decision. He cited Dr. Jaya Thakur v. Union of India, (2023) 10 SCC 276, Common Cause v. Union of India, (2023) 10 SCC 321, and the High Court’s own decision of 21 November 2025 in Atul Sharma v. Union of India, CWPIL No. 26 of 2025, on the extension of the Chief Secretary.
Singh, represented by Dr Lalit Kumar Sharma, adopted the State’s reply and added that the extension satisfied both the public interest test and the test that no suitable successor was available, that Engineer-in-Chief is a technical and sensitive post, and that ongoing projects listed in Annexure R-4/2 needed continuity of supervision. He questioned the petitioner’s locus, citing Ajay Kumar Shukla v. Arvind Rai, (2022) 12 SCC 579. In rebuttal, counsel for the petitioner said his client held a postgraduate degree against the incumbent’s bachelor’s degree, that the file had moved from the top down rather than from the bottom up, and that Chapter 22 permits extension only in exceptional circumstances for extraordinary reasons.
Chapter 22: extension only in really exceptional circumstances
The bench set out Chapter 22 of the Handbook on Personnel Matters, Volume II, in full. Paragraph 22.3 records that retirement on the due date is automatic, that the date is known in advance, and that every extension means the next man misses promotion and often six or seven people miss consequential promotions down the line. Paragraph 22.4 says no proposal for extension should ordinarily be considered; that it can be justified only in very rare and exceptional circumstances; and that the overriding consideration is that it must be clearly in the public interest and in addition satisfy one of two conditions: that other officers are not ripe enough to take over, or that the retiring officer is of outstanding merit. Test (i) is met only where there is a shortage in a specialisation, no suitable successor can be found, or the officer is on a project of vital importance likely to produce results in a year or two; eligible officers are not to be rejected merely because they have less experience than the retiring officer. Test (ii) is not met by the mere fact that the officer is fit and able. No extension may rest on the absence of a successor unless action to select one was taken well in advance and could not be finalised for justifiable reasons.
Paragraph 22.6 prescribes the procedure: a systematic review of officers approaching superannuation, an integrity certificate, and a thirteen-point proforma that asks, among other things, the date from which the vacancy was known, what action was taken to select a successor, why selection could not be finalised, and whether an officiating arrangement could be made instead. Paragraph 22.4.1 reproduces the direction issued by a Division Bench of the High Court on 19 December 2017 in Court on its own motion v. State of H.P., CWPIL No. 201 of 2017, that no employee shall be given extension or re-employment save in accordance with Chapter 22 and FR 56(d), followed by a Department of Personnel letter of 8 February 2018 warning that any extension granted without observing those provisions would be construed as contempt of court.
The promotion file: ready on 8 April, parked on 22 April
The RTI record showed a promotion process well under way. On 3 March 2026 the Department of Personnel noted that the post would fall vacant on 1 May and asked the Public Works Department for a proposal. On 6 April the proposal was on file, listing five Chief Engineers: Suresh Kapoor, who retired on 31 March 2026, and Chauhan, Vikas Sood, Anita Vaidya and Ajay Kapoor, all of whom had completed the prescribed service and held vigilance clearance dated 19 March 2026. A memorandum dated 8 April 2026, signed by Special Secretary (Personnel) Rajiv Kumar, was prepared for a Screening Committee of the Chief Secretary, the Additional Chief Secretary, the Principal Secretary (Public Works) and the Secretary (Personnel). The post carries Level 31 of the pay matrix, Rs 1,48,800 to Rs 2,18,600, plus a special allowance of Rs 10,000. The Chief Secretary fixed the meeting for 9 April 2026 at 11.30 a.m.
The meeting did not happen because the Secretary (Personnel) was on tour. The file went back up to the Chief Secretary to fix a fresh date; the Secretary (Personnel) dealt with it on 20 April, and on 22 April the Chief Secretary wrote “Pl. spk” on it. After that, the court recorded, there was complete silence until 15 May 2026. On 16 May a section officer noted that since Singh had been granted extension by the notification of 28 April, no vacancy existed and the matter should be filed; the Special Secretary agreed and the file was closed up to the Chief Secretary on 18 May.
The extension file: approved on 28 April against its own notes
In the meantime a separate file had been opened in the same department on the strength of a note from the Chief Minister’s office conveying his approval of a six-month extension. Every noting on that file is dated 28 April 2026. What the court found remarkable was the content. The dealing officers wrote that extension must be considered under Chapter 22 and FR 56(d); quoted paragraph 22.4 and FR 56(d), under which no Government servant is to be granted extension beyond 58 years except for budget work or a committee being wound up, and then for no more than three months; recorded that Chief Engineers were eligible for promotion and that the proposal to convene the Screening Committee had already been submitted; noted that a DPC held on 26 February 2026 had already recommended Superintending Engineer Vijay Kumar Chaudhary for the Chief Engineer post that would open up on the promotion; and warned that an extension would deprive feeder-category officers of promotion and cause litigation, as past precedent showed. The note also reproduced the 2018 contempt warning, the 18 March 2026 instruction to review extensions for integrity, and the 7 April 2026 instruction that no extension proposal shall be submitted or entertained at any level and that those on extension would be deemed retired on completion of tenure.
With all of that on the page, the file went up through the Secretary (Personnel) and the Chief Secretary, who marked it “Submitted for orders of Hon’ble CM”, and came back the same day with the endorsement “Approved for six months”. No reason was recorded for disagreeing with the case set out below.
Vishal Sharma, not Atul Sharma
The bench treated the case as governed by its own decision of 1 April 2025 in Vishal Sharma v. State of H.P., CWP No. 231 of 2025, heard with Sanjeev Dhiman v. State of H.P., CWP No. 475 of 2025. There the Director of Animal Husbandry had been re-employed for six months on the Chief Minister’s approval of a minister’s recommendation, before the department had processed anything. The Division Bench held that it could not go into the Director’s suitability or ask the Government to justify its choice, but could ask whether Chapter 22 had been followed in letter and spirit as directed in CWPIL No. 201 of 2017. It found that paragraph 22.6 had been violated with impunity, that no integrity certificate or proforma existed, that the State had not considered whether other eligible candidates were available, and that once the Chief Minister had already decided, no lesser official could have bypassed the order. The burden of showing exceptional circumstances lies on the State and must appear from the record, it held, and a recommendation from an elected representative does not by itself justify re-employment. The re-employment was quashed.
Atul Sharma, relied on by the State, concerned the Central Government’s extension of the Chief Secretary on the Chief Minister’s recommendation, which the court there found had followed the proper procedure under a different set of rules with a justification on record. That judgment itself, at paragraph 69, distinguished Vishal Sharma as a Chapter 22 case in which the file was never processed and the justification was lacking. The Engineer-in-Chief, the bench said, is the highest post in the Public Works Department below the Secretary, just as the Director is in Animal Husbandry; neither can be equated with the Chief Secretary, but the two stand on the same footing as each other.
No public interest shown, no proforma, no reply on merits
On the record, the court found it had never been the case of the department, the Secretary (Personnel) or the Chief Secretary that Singh’s extension was required in the public interest, or that no other officer was ripe for the job, or that he was of outstanding merit. The department had been moving the promotion file, had constituted the Screening Committee and had fixed a date. No requisite proforma under Chapter 22 was ever filled in by Singh or the department, let alone placed before the competent authority. In the State’s reply there was “not a single word uttered showing the public interest” or either of the two tests; the reply simply recited that the Chief Minister had approved the extension and that the notification described it as being in the public interest.
That, the bench said, is not enough. “Public interest is not a magic word”, and its use in a notification does not itself disclose the interest that warranted the action. There was not an iota of evidence of it on the record. Singh’s own reply listed priority projects that he said needed his continued supervision, but the State had taken no such plea, and neither the State nor Singh had suggested that the next officer in line was incompetent or incapable; the petitioner’s pleaded eligibility and competence stood unrebutted.
The movement of the two files led the court to a sharper conclusion. Both were handled by the Department of Personnel, whose stand on both was the same: fill the post by promotion. The promotion file was deferred on 22 April with a two-word note; the extension file, opened on the Chief Minister’s prior approval, was carried through on 28 April against the department’s own advice; the promotion file was then closed on the ground that no vacancy existed. The sequence showed that “the file was deliberately deferred” and a parallel process set in motion. The competent authority, the court said, had deferred the promotion and acted on the communication from the Chief Minister’s office, leaving the department no room to apply its mind; and although the file placed before the Chief Minister itself made the case for refusing the extension, he approved it without recording why he disagreed. The bench added that the deferment was probably at the instance of Singh, who managed to obtain the approval without satisfying any requirement and without any case for extension being submitted under the prescribed procedure. On these facts the case was on a better footing than Vishal Sharma, where the DPC had not even been set in motion.
Since neither public interest nor either of the additional tests had been shown, the extension was illegal, null and void. The petitioner had been eligible for consideration from 1 May 2026 and the process was at its final stage in the first week of April. It was no fault of his that he had not worked as Engineer-in-Chief from that date, and the bench applied Union of India v. K.V. Jankiraman, (1991) 4 SCC 109, to hold that the principle of no work, no pay would not apply to him.
Order
The petition was allowed. The notification of 28 April 2026 extending Singh’s service was quashed and set aside as illegal, arbitrary and void ab initio. Singh ceases to hold the office of Engineer-in-Chief with immediate effect and was directed to relinquish charge forthwith. The State was directed to revive, convene and conclude the Screening Committee proceedings initiated in April 2026, strictly in accordance with the applicable criteria and rules, on or before 11 November 2026. If the Committee finds the petitioner suitable and recommends him, he is to be promoted Engineer-in-Chief with effect from 1 May 2026 with all consequential benefits, including seniority, pay fixation and actual arrears from that date. Pending applications were disposed of. The matter was reserved on 4 August 2026 and decided on 27 October 2026, four days before the extension would have run out on its own terms. The judgment is approved for reporting.