| MUMBAI:
The Delhi High Court has said that Prasar Bharati board member (Finance) AK Jain
can file his appeal by 9 July against the order of the Central Administrative
Tribunal rejecting his plea that an Indian Administrative Service Officer can
work for the public broadcaster on deputation and does not need to resign from
the service. A
vacation bench headed by Justice Veena Birbal passed the stay order on a petition
of Jain challenging the verdict of the tribunal which had recently dismissed his
plea of challenging the validity of a government order asking him to either resign
from IAS for absorption in the public broadcaster or revert to his parent cadre
in Nagaland. The tribunal had granted Jain seven days to appeal and 15 days to
obey the government order. The
Centre, however, opposed the plea by Jain, a 1977 batch IAS officer, on the ground
that he would create "disturbances" in the Prasar Bharati board meeting.
Jain’s
lawyers who did not want to be named told indiantelevision.com that the Court
order meant that status quo would continue and Jain could attend board meetings
till further orders of the Court.
Meanwhile,
the Court had on 29 May directed that a meeting of the Prasar Bharati board should
be convened within four weeks and its proceedings should be videographed and audio
recorded. The direction by a division bench headed by Chief Justice AP Shah came
in an interim order on a petition by the Centre for Public Interest Litigation
seeking a probe into alleged financial irregularities in the public broadcaster.
The matter will be heard again on 15 July. The
Court’s reaction had come following a dispute over minutes of a board meeting
held in January with chief executive officer B S Lalli accusing the chairman AK
Bhatnagar (who has since resigned) of circulating "inaccurate and slanted"
minutes. | 
