The Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) has granted relief to a bunch of reserved category nursing officers, who were denied their choice of branch posting in All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).
The tribunal ruled that meritorious reserved category candidates cannot be put to disadvantage merely because they make it to general unreserved list. It directed AIIMS to allot preferred choice of posting to those meritorious reserved candidates, who had filed the petition, taking into consideration their merit.
The applicants, who belong to OBC, SC and ST categories, in their collective petition had claimed that they were not allotted their first preference of AIIMS institutes — Bhopal, Jodhpur, Patna and Raipur — even after scoring higher marks than other reserved category candidates.
Not meritocracy
The petition filed through advocate Gyanant Kumar Singh claimed that after the result of the exam was declared on February 20, 2020, the petitioners were placed in the unreserved/general category merit list, having scored more marks than their counterparts in the reserved category lists.
“The applicants being put in the general merit list were not allotted their first preference while many of their counterparts in the reserved quota lists who had scored less marks were allotted institutes listed as their first preference,” Mr. Singh said.
He argued that an ST candidate having overall rank of 952 did not get Bhopal, while less meritorious ST candidate with rank as low as over 4,228 had been allotted AIIMS Bhopal as the candidate was in ST list.
This, he said, was an anomaly that required correction. “Any procedure which benefits less meritorious candidates as against meritorious candidates is bad in law,” Mr. Singh argued.
“The methodology being followed by AIIMS is against the mandate of law as expounded by the Supreme Court in a plethora of judgments,” the petition had said.
“A Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court in Union of India vs Ramesh Ram held in 2010 that a reserved category candidate selected against general/ unreserved vacancy could pot for a higher choice of service earmarked for reserved category,” it added.
Mr. Singh had argued that the action of the institute had caused “irreparable injury to the rights of the applicants, particularly in view of the fact that the posting is non-transferable”.
Acting on the petition, the tribunal ordered AIIMS to revise the posting of the candidates within two months.
