Haryana Overhauls Judiciary and Healthcare: Cabinet Approves Sweeping Reforms
From courtroom to clinic, the Nayab Singh Saini government reshapes recruitment rules, land use policy and legal frameworks in a single sitting
The most eye-catching decision to emerge from the Haryana Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini was a fundamental restructuring of how the state recruits its higher judiciary. Acting on Supreme Court directions stemming from the landmark All India Judges Association case, the Cabinet slashed promotion-based entry into the Haryana Superior Judicial Service from 65 percent to 50 percent, while more than doubling the Limited Competitive Examination quota from 10 percent to 25 percent. In a further democratising move, direct recruitment has been opened beyond advocates at the Bar to include eligible candidates from the Subordinate Judicial Service — a change designed to reward merit and widen the talent pool feeding into the higher judicial cadre.
On the healthcare front, the Cabinet moved to plug a staffing crisis that had been quietly hollowing out government hospitals and dispensaries. The mandatory six-month training requirement for Pharmacy Officers — introduced when the post was upgraded in 2021 — has been scrapped after it was found to be drastically shrinking the number of eligible applicants. Alongside this, direct recruitment for the post has been pushed up sharply from 75 percent to 95 percent, reducing the promotion quota to just 5 percent. The pay scale for Pharmacy Officers has also been revised upward, with basic pay now set at Rs. 39,900.
The Cabinet also modernised eligibility rules for Operation Theatre Assistants, replacing outdated diploma requirements — discontinued since 2009 — with a Bachelor of Science in Medical Technology as the new standard, bringing recruitment norms in line with how medical education has actually evolved.
On the legal side, the Cabinet approved a long-overdue tidying up of the Punjab Courts Act, 1918 as applicable to Haryana, substituting references to two repealed 19th-century laws with the Indian Succession Act, 1925. The change, recommended by the Registrar General of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, removes an ambiguity that had been hanging over succession-related proceedings in subordinate courts.
Rounding out the session, the Cabinet cleared a new policy on mixed land use zones in state development plans — areas where residential, commercial, institutional and industrial uses overlap but where the absence of clear percentage guidelines had left planning permissions in limbo. Under the new framework, residential, commercial and institutional uses will face no percentage cap, while mixed-use projects must maintain at least a 70-to-30 ratio between dominant and allied uses. Existing industrial units in such zones may continue operating but will not be permitted to expand.
