COURTESY HT DEC 16

Ensure recruitments are made as per laws: HC to Punjab, Haryana
HT Correspondent

letterschd@hindustantimes.com

Chandigarh : The Punjab and Haryana high court has asked the governments of Punjab and Haryana, and Chandigarh administration to instruct recruiting agencies to fill up posts in the case of direct appointment as per settled principles of law.

The bench of justice Harsimran Singh Sethi said a deviation from the laid down process creates anomalies and unnecessary litigations. The bench said while filling up the posts advertised in various categories, first of all, the posts advertised in the open general category are required to be filled up from the joint merit list of reserved and non-reserved and it is only after all the posts of open general category are filled, the process of filling up of posts available in various reserved categories is to be undertaken on the basis of merit secured by the reserved category candidates in the selection process.

The bench was seized of a matter of recruitment of 1,558 posts of head teachers in Punjab initiated by the state government in March 2019. The method of selection as per the advertisement was that a candidate was required to undergo a written test and the selection was to be made on the basis of the marks secured in the said written test, subject to the scrutiny of the documents of the eligible candidates. The matter had reached high court as some candidates had objected to filling up of general category posts from the reserved category candidates after release of merit list. Following petitions, the HC had stayed the recruitment process and it stands vacated now after more than a year.

The outcome of the illegal or irregular action of the respondents shows that even up to now, the selection and appointment of the candidates could not be finalised and has also created unnecessary litigation, the bench said, adding that had the respondents followed the settled principle of law, this controversy would not have arisen at all and the selection process could have been finalised much earlier.

The court had found that recruitment board recommended candidates equal to the number of posts and not twice the number of posts advertised. The second irregularity, the court found was that the board took up the selection process of all the 1,558 posts simultaneously rather than first filling up all the posts of the open general category, followed by reserved category posts