DW BUREAU / Chandigarh The Punjab and Haryana High Court has upheld the appointment of retired IAS officer Suresh Kumar as the Chief Principal Secretary to Punjab's then Chief Minister, Capt Amarinder Singh, reversing the judgement passed by a single bench in January 2018. Observing that there was no violation of "any statutory rules", a division bench comprising Justice Augustine George Masih and Justice Ashok Kumar Verma allowed the appeal in favour of his appointment. "We do not see any undue haste in appointment in the above factual matrix. In any case, this has no bearing upon the appointment, when we have come to the conclusion that he was not holding a public office nor was he performing any public/sovereign functions." The appointment being purely contractual in nature and there being no violation of any statutory rules, especially when he has not been appointed against any cadre/ex-cadre/temporary post of IAS, we see no ground which would entitle issuance of a writ of quo-warranto by this Court holding the respondent to be a usurper of office, the court ruled, dismissing the writ petition filed by Ramandeep Singh challenging Suresh Kumar's appointment. The Bench observed that whenever the new Chief Minister entes into office, inevitably he needs someone to assist him in performing his functions and duties. It is with that intent and for fulfilling the commitments made in the manifesto, a comprehensive planning and regular monitoring is required the level of the Chief Minister's office. For this, decision was taken by the Chief Minister to appoint Suresh Kumar who had experience of working in various departments of the State Government, Government of India, United Nations, etc and had earlier also worked at the office of the Chief Minister as the Principal Secretary. Keeping all the aspects as also the fact that Suresh Kumar had superannuated as an Additional Chief Secretary, he was appointed as the CPSCM by the Chief Minister subject to the approval of the Council of Ministers. This inevitably had to be the first act of the Chief Minister after assuming office, in this case on March 16, 2017, the court said adding that it has been explained that the Council of Ministers had approved the proposal and appointment of Suresh Kumar in its meeting on March 17, 2017. Later, the standing orders were issued and the terms and conditions of appointment of Suresh Kumar were approved by the Council of Ministers in its meeting on April 19, 2017, which was forwarded to the Governor. It cannot, thus, be said that the appointment of Suresh Kumar has been made in undue haste or that the Standing orders have been issued in a hurry and not brought to the notice of the Governor. In light of the above, the High Court allowed the appeal and set aside the impugned judgement dated January 17, 2018, passed by the single bench. (editor@dailyworld.in)