Madras HC seeks Senthilbalaji period MTC hire list
Don’t try any tricks, cautions 2-judge div bench while ordering notice to State government;
V Senthilbalaji
CHENNAI: Cautioning against trying out any tricks, the Madras High Court on Thursday directed the State to produce the lists of all selected candidates for the posts of junior engineers and assistant engineers recruited by Metropolitan Transport Corporation in 2015 when Senthilbalaji held the ministership of Transport department.
A division bench of Justice R Subramanian and Justice G Arul Murugan, hearing a batch of appeals moved by several candidates challenging the recruitment process for the post of junior engineer and assistant engineer posts, also directed to issue notice to them.
Advocate N Subramaniyan for the appellants submitted that the MTC issued a notice in 2014, inviting applications for several posts including junior and assistant engineers. “It was told that the selection would be based on a weightage of 75% academic marks and 25% interview marks. However, the appellants who scored higher marks were denied jobs while those who secured lesser marks were recruited,” said the advocate.
The advocate alleged that since the entire selection was marred by irregularities and corruption, the Central Crime Branch (CCB) registered a case including the then transport minister Senthilbalaji which is pending trial.
The advocate sought the court’s direction to declare the selection process as illegal and arbitrary, remove all the candidates appointed illegally and appoint the appellants based on their eligibility.
Additional Advocate General Ajmal Khan for MTC submitted that the criminal case is still pending and the State is still on its stand that several irregularities had taken place in the selection process.
After the submissions, the bench directed the MTC to produce the list of selected candidates before the court on April 21 and also directed it to issue notice to them.
Since more than 60 appointed candidates were not made as parties in the appeals, the bench suo motu impleaded them and also directed the MTC to issue notice to them and file a compliance report on April 29. The matter, in which the appointed candidates were made as respondents, was posted to April 23 for further proceedings.