Hyderabad: Justice M.S. Ramachandra Rao of the Telangana High Court on Friday lambasted state authorities for the gaffes while issuing notifications for recruitment. He said that because of this, most recruitment notifications issued in the last five years had been challenged.
Dealing with the contempt case over appointment of 9,335 junior panchayat secretaries, the judge said the commissioner of panchayat raj was disobedient in abiding by the assurance given to the court.
When a bunch of petitions was filed in 2018 challenging the JPS notification for violating reservations and sports quota rules, the commissioner had given an undertaking to the court that vacancies would be filled in accordance with the 100-point roster mentioned in Rules 22. They would also consider only the most meritorious sports persons for the 2 per cent sports quota.
The contempt case was filed charging that this undertaking had been dishonored.
Expressing deep concern over the functioning of bureaucrats without adhering to the rules, Justice Ramachandra Rao observed, “Bureaucrats should take the legal opinion of the Advocate General before issuing notifications, so that litigations do not pile up in the High Court. I am dealing with 700 contempt cases every Friday... it is a mess here.”
The judge said, “Whenever mistakes are pointed out by way of filing petitions, the government comes before this court and says it will rectify its mistakes. But what will happen to the employees who are employed$85 without the intervention of the High Court. It seems that the government is not able to function. If it cannot function, then it is better it winds up.”
Panchayat raj commissioner Neethu Kumar Prasad appeared in person and informed the court that she had been transferred to the post only four months back and sought eight weeks to take necessary action.
Refusing the time, Justice Ramachandra Rao issued a suo motu contempt notice to her predecessor Raghunandan Rao and sought what the government proposed to do with the JPSs that had been employed and whose appointments, as per the court, were illegal. The judge told the official: “Apprise your predecessor of what transpired in the court today.”
