Madras High Court constitutes committee to check if roster system for reservation was followed for Civil Judge recruitment in 2003, 2009, 2012

The Madras High Court on Thursday directed the constitution of a committee to examine whether Civil Judge recruitment in 2003, 2009, and 2012, and seniority lists prepared on their basis, have adhered to the 200-point roster-based, reservation system applicable in Tamil Nadu for filling such vacancies (M Vasudevan v. The Registrar General and 194 ors)..The order was passed by a Bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy while dealing with petitions filed in 2015, wherein a seniority list was prepared on the basis of recruitment to the post of Civil Judge (Junior Division) was challenged as completely flawed. The petitions were filed by judicial officers who were recruited in 2009..The Court noted the while the 200-point roster appears to have been referred to by the State Public Service Commission (which does the recruitment exercise), it may not have adhered to the exacting rules relating to how to fill in the slots in 2009. .The Court also noted that the State Public Service Commission committed the same mistake during recruitment in 2003 and 2012. While so, it was observed that the High Court issued letters of appointment and prepared seniority lists as per the recommendations made by the State Public Service Commission..Consequently, revised seniority lists were sought for the 2003 and 2012 batches in addition to the 2009 batch, which was furnished to the Court in a sealed cover. It is the right of every judicial officer to be placed in the appropriate slot in the seniority list, the Court observed while narrating this turn of events..The Bench proceeded to direct the circulation of these lists to the office of Advocate General R Shunmugasundaram, advocate V Vijay Shankar who represented the High Court administration and Senior Advocate V Prakash who represented some of the petitioners..Moreover, the Court also ordered the constitution of a committee headed by senior advocate V Prakash and also comprising of advocate V Vijay Shankar and CNG Niraimathi and the President or Secretary of the association of judicial officers in the State to look into the matter.."The committee will go through the lists after obtaining the results of all the candidates who participated in 2003, 2009 and 2012 recruitment examinations and matching the marks obtained against the slots allotted in the revised draft lists in accordance with the law as recognised in the initial part of this order. In the event of any doubt, the principles referred to in the judgment reported at (2003) 5 SCC 604 (Bimlesh Tanwar v. State of Haryana) and the law as laid down by the Supreme Court thereafter should be applied in the context of the State law as to reservation," the Court said..The Court added that the committee should do the same by the end of next week. The case was posted for further hearing on July 19 at 2.15 pm..[Read Order]