The Madras High Court has begun sending hall tickets for the written examination to be conducted here on Sunday for the posts of Sweeper and Sanitary Worker. The written test would be followed by a practical test as well as an interview before the eligible candidates are shortlisted for the 68 and 59 vacancies respectively in each of the two posts.
Candidates who have passed Class VIII and submitted their applications along with all requisite supporting documents such as educational and community certificates would be attending the one-hour objective type test for a maximum 50 marks, of which 35 would be given for answers to questions on general knowledge (GK) and 15 on general Tamil.
The 35 questions on GK would be asked both in English and Tamil. Those who score more than 15 marks in the written test would be called for practical tests for which the minimum qualifying marks are 5 out of 15. The final selection of candidates would be made only after an interview, which would have to be cleared by scoring at least three out of 10 marks.
The practical test for the post of Sweeper would be related to the nature of the job, which includes sweeping, cleaning and mopping the office rooms, chambers and corridors, besides collecting and disposing of waste. The duties of the Sanitary Worker includes cleaning lavatories, urinals, wash basins and the chambers and maintaining them hygienically.
Court sources said that an elaborate procedure, including a communal roster, was being followed, even for appointment in the lowest cadre of sweepers and sanitary workers, since the Supreme Court had, in a judgment delivered on February 12, 2014, frowned upon the “menace of back door entries of employees (in the judiciary), who subsequently are ordered to be regularised.”
Stating that more than one-fourth of the sanctioned strength of 3,243 employees in the Madras High Court as well as its Madurai Bench has been lying vacant for nearly a year, the sources said that one of the reasons for the delay was the issue related to filling up of vacancies through promotions having been mired in multiple cases filed in the same court.
Though the vacancies were spread over 37 different posts below the officers’ cadre, they could not be filled up through promotions due to cases filed by existing employees as well as individual lawyers challenging the alleged back door appointments made between 2001 and 2005 and the attempts to promote such appointees to higher posts.
“In one such case, a Division Bench of the court had on March 23 ordered maintenance of status quo with respect to promotion of Assistant Section Officers as Section Officers. The interim order got vacated only a couple of days before Dussehra vacation. Still the main case challenging the illegal appointments is pending,” says the petitioner’s counsel M. Radhakrishnan.
Explaining the reasons for having challenged the appointments after a decade, he says that it was because the seniority list of High Court employees was released for the first time during the tenure of former Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul in November 2014 and only after that the employees came to know of their individual status compared to others.
In the meantime, P. Pugalenthi, a Chennai based advocate, has also filed a public interest litigation petition challenging the appointment of 314 court employees on the ground that their continuation in service despite having been appointed “through back door” would deny an opportunity for others to enter into High Court service on merits.
“The High Court had promoted hundreds of Office Assistants (OAs) to the post of Reader/Examiner in January last year. Yet, most of them are still continuing to work as OAs, despite drawing higher salary, because of the delay in filling up vacancies that would be created on account of their promotion.
“During the same period, many OAs who had completed graduation were given double promotion. Some of them were denied promotion since they had obtained degrees through Open University system. On August 10, the Madurai Bench of the High Court has held that such denial is wrong. This judgement has put another spoke in the process of filling up the vacancies as the Registrar General has now planned to move the Supreme Court against the judgement,” a court official said.
