Hyderabad: The Hyderabad High Court on Monday set aside multiple seniority lists issued by the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) in various categories and also promotions given based on the seniority lists.
Justice M.S. Ramachandra Rao was dealing with a petition of J. Subrahm-anyam, assistant executive officer, and 35 others, challenging the action of the TTD in giving consequential seniority to employees who were promoted under the reserved category and not applying the “catch up” rule when general candidates are subsequently promoted.
Dr K. Lakshmi Narasimha, counsel for the petitioners, contended that the TTD is a ‘religious institution’ and has got its own rules and regulations, and by virtue of the powers given to the TTD, it has framed service regulations.
He said that as per the service regulations, alth-ough rule of reservation in favour of SC and ST candidates was permissible, there was no rule giving consequential seniority to those persons.
He told the court that in the absence of a rule for consequential promotions, the catch up principle will apply. The counsel for the TTD admitted that there was no rule providing for consequential seniority. While setting aside the seniority lists and consequential promotions, the judge directed the TTD to review the seniority of all such persons under the catch up rule principle with all consequential benefits and complete the exercise within a period of 6 weeks.
The Telangana government on Monday assured the Hyderabad High Court that it will give weightage marks to civil assistant surgeons by considering the period of service rendered by doctors who have served on contract basis in rural areas which are now in Andhra Pradesh in the recruitment of civil surgeon posts. D Prakash Reddy, advocate-general submitted before a division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice K Vijaya Lakshmi that the state government will soon issue an order in this regard.
The bench was dealing with a petition by Dr. B. Raju and others seeking to declare as illegal the action of the state government in not counting the service of the petitioners for the period they worked in combined Andhra Pradesh as medical officers (on contract basis) for the purpose of giving weightage marks to the petitioner for their selection and appointment to the post of civil assistant surgeons.
The petitioners urged the court to declare that petitioner is entitled to count their service and they are entitled for weightage marks for the service rendered by them in combined AP in entitled to make applications manually by indicating their contract service rendered in combined state prior to June 2, 2014 and after that in Telangana. While recording the assurance of the state government, the bench closed the petition.
Meanwhile the bench said that it will take up the hearing of petitions questioning the action of the state government in giving weightage marks to civil assistant surgeons and staff nurses on next Monday.
