High Court rejects plea to nullify appointments
Litigation pertains to 314 vacancies, whichwere filled between 2001 and 2005
The Madras High Court has dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) petition filed by a lawyer to declare as null and void 314 appointments made by the court between 2001 and 2005 in various posts without calling for applications through public advertisements and thereby denying a fair chance to all eligible candidates to compete for the vacancies.
Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M. Sundar rejected the PIL on the ground of delay in challenging the appointments. The judges said that it would not be appropriate to question the appointments after the appointees had put in more than 12 years of service. They, however, ordered that all future appointments in the court should be made only after wide publicity.
‘Back-door appointments’
In his affidavit, the petitioner, P. Pugalenthi, said that he came to know of the 314 court employees having been appointed “through back door” only recently, when one of the court employees, who had been denied promotions and aggrieved over loss of seniority due to the “irregular” appointments made in higher posts, filed an individual writ petition challenging the appointments.
“It is saddening to note that when lakhs of qualified unemployed youth are available in Tamil Nadu and other parts of the country for being considered for employment in the State as defined under Article 12 of the Constitution, more than 300 persons were allowed by the respondent High Court to hold various positions without undergoing any selection process,” the lawyer said.
SC order cited
While arguing the case, his counsel M. Radhakrishnan cited the Supreme Court ruling in Binod Kumar Gupta versus Ram Ashray Mahoto (2005) wherein it was observed: “If we allow the appellants to continue in service merely because they have been working in the posts for the last 15 years, we would be guilty of condoning a gross irregularity in their initial appointment.”
However, after going through the entire apex court judgment, the Bench led by the Chief Justice said that those observations had been made in a different context where it took about 15 years for the courts to deliver the final verdict in a case that had challenged the appointments without any delay. That verdict would not apply to the present PIL petition, it remarked.
It would not be appropriate to question the appointments after the appointees have put in more than 12 years of serviceMadras HC
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