The Madras High Court Bench in Madurai has set aside the selection of 843 veterinary assistant surgeons for effective implementation of the scheme to distribute 60,000 milch cows and four goats each to seven lakh poor families in rural areas over a period of five years and also to strengthen Animal Husbandry Department farms.
Justice Vinod Kumar Sharma held that the selection ought not to have been made only on the basis of seniority in employment exchanges rather than inviting applications through advertisements in newspapers and other media.
The ruling was given while disposing of a batch of writ petitions filed by candidates whose names were not sponsored by employment exchanges.
Violations of Articles 14, 16
According to the judge, failure to call for applications through wide publicity amounted to violation of Articles 14 (right to equality before law) and 16 (right to equality of opportunity in matters of public employment) of the Constitution.
He said that the government order issued on November 14 for filling the posts, through employment exchange seniority, would not stand the test of Constitutional mandate of equality.
The G.O. had also ordered the creation of 585 posts of animal husbandry assistant, 99 other posts (assistant director of animal husbandry -11, superintendent - 11, assistant -11, junior assistant - 22, typist - 11, driver - 11, office assistant- 11 and watchman- 11).
But the judge did not express any opinion on the process of filling them as they were not under question in the present writ petition.
Nevertheless, while dealing with a writ petition relating to public employment earlier, the judge had directed the Chief Secretary to the Government that every government vacancy must be filled only through wide publicity in the media instead of confining the recruitment process to the method of calling for sponsorship of names from the employment exchanges.
