HC Quashes GO on Contract Health Staff Appointments

Hyderabad:The Telangana High Court set aside a government order issued in 2013 appointing 1,200 employees as contract multi-purpose health workers. In a direction, a two-judge panel said that the Telangana and Andhra Pradesh governments shall ensure that only such employees deserve continuance whose names find place in the select list.

“If any vacancy has arisen thereafter, it must be filled up as per public policy and in accordance with the relevant recruitment rules,” the panel said. The panel was dealing with a batch of 14 writ petitions and 17 writ appeals, and put at rest a marathon litigation of claims and counter-claims for the recruitment of para-medical posts namely multi-purpose health assistant (male). The notification was issued in July 2002.

Effectively, the litigation spanned over two decades. Central to the initial litigation was the question as to whether the minimum qualification was Class 10 or Intermediate. A merit list on the basis of merit of candidates who had cleared Intermediate was prepared even as the litigation moved from the erstwhile service tribunal to the apex court and was remanded to the High Court.

Since appointments were made according to the merit list of Intermediate candidates, the Supreme Court having declared that Class 10 was the minimum classification set aside the earlier selections and required the government(s) to re-draw the merit list.

Cases and cross cases led to multiple candidates claiming that they were better qualified than those who were selected and appointed. In the meanwhile, the government issued proceedings to accommodate the displaced candidates.

Senior counsel M. Surender Rao pointed out that more meritorious candidates should be accommodated and the validity of the government action in first terminating and then issuing the GO Rt taking back the terminated employees was questioned.

It was the stand of the parties that after the bifurcation of the state, certain posts out of original 2,324 were bifurcated to the Andhra Pradesh and posts added pursuant to permission of the Supreme Court.

The AP government took a decision to appoint all the selected candidates. Two senior counsels, T. Surya Karan Reddy and G. Vidyasagar, also supported the government order of accommodating the terminated employees and pressed for meritorious candidates.

S. Rahul Reddy, special government pleader, pointed out that 1,200 employees, who were taken back through GO Rt. No. 1207-13, were appointed on ‘contractual basis’. The learned single judge had erred in directing creation of supernumerary posts and even granted them ‘notional’ seniority, it was stated.

The flood gate has been opened because of which a number of new litigants were filing petitions in batches before the court by citing that less meritorious candidates had already been appointed.

Vidyasagar urged that the beneficiaries of the GO whose grievance was considered by the group of ministers should not be terminated as it was a stand-alone decision. In his arguments that almost set the cat among the pigeons, senior counsel L. Ravichander. representing the unemployed youth, said that the unofficial respondents were qualified eligible unemployed youth, who are awaiting a chance for their consideration for employment.

Ravichander highlighted that after 2002 till date, no recruitment process was initiated by the government by issuing any recruitment notification. The less meritorious candidates, who were not covered within the sanctioned strength of posts, had been appointed, which is illegal.

By placing reliance on four Supreme Court judgments, Ravichander canvassed that the action of filling up vacancies beyond the posts advertised/notified was impermissible and illegal.

In a detailed analysis of the matter, the panel found that the administrative decision to accommodate the non-meritorious candidates amounted to acting contrary to the judgment of the court and said that the defects which became the reason of the decision in writ petitions and batch filed in 2002, were cured with retrospective effect.

In the absence thereof, administrative decision and issuance of GO Rt. No. 1207 against the spirit of court order could not be countenanced. The panel speaking through Justice Sujoy Paul, said the re-engagement of such employees beyond the sanctioned vacancy was impermissible and against public policy.

The panel also said once the said employees were directed to be terminated by the court and the judgment had attained finality, in consequence of which they were terminated, it was not just and proper to take them back through GO Rt. No. 1207.

“If we approve such re-engagement, we will be deciding contrary to the spirit of the final order passed by the court in batch of writ petitions filed in 2002 and affirmed by the Supreme Court,” the panel said.

The panel further said, “We are constrained to observe that by no stretch of imagination, re-engagement of terminated employees can be said to be a ‘necessary evil’. If we assuage our judicial conscience and treat such action as ‘necessary evil’, it will look more and more necessary and less and less evil.”