Supreme Court Slaps Rs 5 Lakh Costs On Union Govt For Stalling IRS Officer's ITAT Appointment

The Supreme Court on Friday allowed a petition filed by Captain Pramod Kumar Bajaj, a former Indian Revenue Service officer and ex-Army personnel, holding that he was subjected to sustained institutional bias, mala fide conduct and deliberate obstruction by departmental authorities in relation to his appointment as Member (Accountant) of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal.

It also imposed costs of Rs 5 lakh on the Union Government for rank procrastination and deliberate obstruction in his appointment.

A Bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta noted that despite the petitioner being ranked first on the all-India merit list by the Search cum Selection Committee (SCSC) in 2014, his appointment was repeatedly stalled through vigilance actions, disciplinary proceedings and procedural delays spanning for over a decade.

“In view of the rank procrastination shown by the respondents in these proceedings and the deliberate obstacles created by them in the path of the petitioner bordering to vendetta and as the allegations set out in the writ petition remain untraversed, we impose cost quantified at Rs.5 lakhs on the respondents.”, the court said.

Captain Pramod Kumar was commissioned into the Indian Army in 1980 and was released on account of disability suffered during active military operations. He later cleared the civil services examination and joined the Indian Revenue Service in the 1990 batch, rising to the rank of Commissioner of Income Tax in January 2012.

In 2014, he applied for appointment as Member (Accountant), ITAT. The SCSC, chaired by a sitting judge of the supreme court, placed him at rank one. However, the Union of India withheld his appointment citing adverse Intelligence Bureau inputs allegedly arising from a matrimonial dispute.

This led to multiple rounds of litigation before the Central Administrative Tribunal, the Allahabad high court, and the supreme court. Between 2017 and 2019, judicial forums directed the authorities to reconsider his candidature and forward his name for appointment. These directions were repeatedly not complied with, resulting in contempt proceedings.

During this period, the petitioner was subjected to a vigilance inspection, placement in an “Agreed List,” suspension, and ultimately compulsory retirement in September 2019 just months before his superannuation. The compulsory retirement was later quashed by the supreme court in March 2023. In this order, the court made strong observations that the action was punitive and designed to short circuit disciplinary proceedings.

A fourth SCSC meeting was convened in September 2024. However, Pramod Kumar objected to the presence of a senior officer, who had earlier faced contempt proceedings at his instance, as a member of the committee. The SCSC subsequently rejected his candidature.

The court held that the participation of such an officer gave rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias, vitiating the selection process. It reiterated that not only must justice be done but it must also appear to be done especially in high public appointments.

“Nonetheless, we feel that the inclusion of “the Officer” as a member of the SCSC, which rejected the petitioner's candidature, has undoubtedly created a genuine perception of bias in the mind of the petitioner and was in gross violation of the principles of natural justice.”, the court observed.

The court thus set aside the minutes of the SCSC insofar as they related to the petitioner. It directed constitution of a fresh SCSC excluding the concerned officer and ordered reconsideration of Bajaj's candidature within a fixed timeframe.