The Punjab and Haryana High Court has stayed the compulsory retirement of Ishwar Singh Dahiya, a Haryana Civil Services Officer (HCS) but held that the officer will not deal with any significant file in the mean time. The Haryana Cabinet had given its approval to the decision of the Competent Disciplinary Authority to impose a penalty of compulsory retirement upon Dahiya, an HCS officer, as a disciplinary measure.

The State Cabinet, at its meeting presided over by Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, had approved of the action after taking into consideration all aspects of the matter relevant to the case, including the findings of the Inquiry Officer, observations made by Haryana Public Service Commission and contentions made by the officer in his representation.

Arguing the case, advocate Puneet Bali contended that the decision taken to forcibly retire Dahiya was arbitrary and illegal. Bali submitted that the allegations levelled against Dahiya were not proved at all.

The inquiry had established that Dahiya had used unfair means in the Revenue Law Paper II examination held on November 29, 2001, as the answer given by him tally word-for-word with text books, Act and manuals, not possible for any normal person to memorise verbatim.