Madras HC seeks government's reply to plea on recruiting law officials

Chennai: Madras High Court has directed the state government to file a reply on a petition to quash a notification dated July 25, 2018 calling for applications to recruit 66 law officials’ posts and to implement reservation policy in the recruitment.

Justice M. Duraiswamy, before whom a writ petition from advocate V. Elangovan came up for hearing on Thursday, has directed Additional Advocate General Manishankar to file the counter affidavit and posted the matter to August 20, 2018.

In the petition, advocate V. Elangovan has submitted that the state government in a notification dated July 25, 2018 called for applications to recruit 66 Law officers posts, including — Special Government Pleaders, Additional Government Pleaders, Additional Public Prosecutors, Government Advocates for Criminal and Civil sides and Government Advocates for Taxes.

He said the notification violates the existing government orders on reservation of seats for Backward Classes, SC, and ST and others. The then government headed by Karunanidhi had appointed a Commission under Sattanathan to go into issue and the Commission had increased the reservation as 31 per cent for BC’s and 18 per cent for SC/ST’s and subsequently, the Government increased reservation up to 69%.

He said that the government ought to have reserved 69 per cent of the posts for BC, MBC, SC/ST and others. He said the notification has to be struck down for not following the reservation policy.