The State government has issued a notification on November 9 creating one post of Officer on Special Duty (Technical) under Rule 6(1) of the Printing & Stationery (Technical) Service Rules, 1995.
Another notification of the same date was also issued whereby Salgira R. Marak has been transferred from the post of Director Printing & Stationery, Meghalaya to the post of OSD (Technical) in the Administrative Department of Printing & Stationery.
This was informed by Advocate General Amit Kumar to the division bench of Meghalaya High Court during a hearing on the writ appeal filed by the State government today.
In the light of the above two notifications, Kumar informed the High Court that the base of the judgment which is impugned in the present appeal is taken out by the Government of Meghalaya and therefore he sought leave to withdraw the appeal.
Senior lawyer B K Sharma who appeared on behalf of Marak said that he has no objection to withdrawal of the writ appeal by the government.
Following the request by Kumar, the High Court allowed the State government to withdraw the appeal.
“Appeal is disposed of as withdrawn,” said the order passed by Justice Ranjit More and Justice Wanlura Diengdoh.
“It is expressly made clear that we have not gone into the merits of the matter and all points and contentions of the respective parties kept open,” the two judges said.
It may be noted that on September 17, the Meghalaya High Court ruled in favour of Director, Printing & Stationery, Salgira R. Marak in a case involving arbitrary transfer as Officer on Special Duty (OSD).
The State government had transferred Marak as OSD of Printing and Stationery. Joint Director, E D R Tariang was appointed as Director, Printing & Stationery.
Marak challenged the matter in the High Court and the single bench of the court ruled in his favour and quashed the notifications of the State government regarding his transfer as OSD and also appointment of Tariang as Director.
Following this, the State government filed an appeal before the High Court challenging the judgement passed by the single bench of the court.