Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Feb 3: A bench of Central Administrative Tribunal comprising Dr Bhagwan Sahai and Rakesh Sagar Jain has directed the Government to appoint petitioner Tajinder Kour as Assistant Professor in Geography under OM category.
After hearing Senior Advocate Abhinav Sharma with Advocate Abhimanyu Sharma for the petitioner, the CAT observed, “even if the executive instructions in the form of Govt Order No. 62-SW of 2001 dated 13.01.2001 are ignored, the respondent cannot apply the roster at his own sweet will, caprice and whims, as the Reservation Rules, 2005, with particular reference to Rule 5(2) stipulates that the roster shall be maintained as a running account from year to year and even if the stand of the PSC is to be accepted in view of the judgment of the Supreme Court, which judgment otherwise has no application at all in the facts and circumstances of the present case, in that eventuality also the first vacancy was required to be offered to handicapped category candidates in the year 2007 when 3 candidates were appointed and second was required to be offered in the year 2014 when 43 vacancies were advertised”.
“Who knows at that point of time in the year 2014 handicapped category candidates were available or not and even if available, who knows to which category he could belong whether OM, SC, ST, ALC or RBA and to whom he could have cut across by way of horizontal reservation in the year 2014 is not known to anyone but certainly even in that eventuality 3rd vacancy was to be offered at point No. 67th which was yet to be reached, as in the year 2017 only 10 vacancies were advertised and only 60th point had reached. Therefore, in no circumstances, the right of the applicant could have been taken away by respondent”, the CAT said.
With these observations, CAT allowed the petition and directed PSC to recommend the name of the applicant to Higher Education Department for her appointment as Assistant Professor in Geography under OM category, pursuant to her selection made by J&K PSC vide Notification No. 03-PSC (DR-S) of 2021 dated 05.01.2021 with all consequential benefits including notional seniority and fixation of pay though without any arrears of salary with effect from the date the selected candidates were appointed against posts of Assistant professors in other disciplines.
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