Madras High Court quashes provisional recruitment list for 245 civil judges citing violation of reservation rules

The Madras High Court recently cancelled the provisional recruitment of 245 civil judges for the Tamil Nadu judicial service, citing violation of reservation and roster rules..In an order passed on February 29, a bench of Justices SM Subramaniam and K Rajasekar directed the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission (TNPSC) to publish a revised list within two weeks.While holding that the selection list issued by the TNPSC on February 16 this year stood cancelled, the High Court noted that the State had failed to implement reservation in such recruitment as contemplated under Section 27(f) of the Tamil Nadu Government Servants (Conditions of Service) Act, 2016..The bench passed its order while allowing a batch of writ petitions filed by nine applicants to the post of civil judge.The petitioners told the Court that TNPSC had issued a notification on June 1, 2023, inviting applications for recruitment of 245 civil judges, which included 92 “carried forward” vacancies. As per the notification, these 92 carried forward vacancies were to be filled by implementing the provision of reservation in accordance with Section 27 (f) the 2016 Act. The remaining 153 regular vacancies were be filled by following the general rule of reservation.As per Section 27 (f) of the 2016 Act, if in any given year, vacancies reserved for categories such as the Backward Class, Backward Class Muslims, Most Backward Classes (MBC) and Denotified Tribes, and Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes remain to be filled, then such reserved seats must not lapse, but must instead be filled in the next recruitment cycle..In the present case, meritorious candidates under the MBC quota, who would have been selected irrespective of any reservation, were not considered under the general vacancies at all but were confined to the seats reserved for the MBCs and the Denotified Tribes quota against the backlog or carry forward vacancies, thus limiting their chances of being selected.This, the High Court agreed, was a clear breach of the law..“Violation of Section 27(f) of the Act 2016 is apparently visible on mere perusal of the methodology adopted for preparation of provisional select list. Thus, we could arrive at an inevitable conclusion that the provisional select list, published by the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission, is infirm and to be redrawn by placing the toppers in the merit ranking list under the general category candidates in tune with the interpretation given by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in K Shobana's case, more specifically, in paragraph 26 of the judgement,” the High Court said..It directed the TNPSC to prepare a revised provisional list by accommodating top ranking candidates in the merit list under the general category and thereafter, accommodate candidates against the carried forward vacancies as per the quota notified for backlog vacancies, and thereafter, place the remaining candidates against the current vacancies by adopting the Rules of reservation..Senior Counsel G Sankaran and Dakshayani Reddy and advocate Balan Haridas appeared for the petitioner candidates.Advocates R Bharanidharan and B Vijay appeared for the respondents - TNPSC and the Registrar of the High Court..[Read Order]