Madras HC vacates its status quo order on campus recruitment by PSUs

Updated on: Thursday, September 27, 2012

The Madras High Court vacated its previous order that status quo be maintained regarding campus interviews for recruitment by Central and state government PSUs.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice M Y Eqbal and Justice T S Sivagnanam said if the interim order on a writ petition passed on February 22 was allowed to continue, it would cause undue harassment to candidates.

The balance of convenience appeared to be more on the side of candidates selected much prior to the grant of status quo order, it said.

The bench, however, made it clear that any appointment made after filing of the writ petition would be subject to the result of the petition.

In February, petitioner's advocate M Palanimuthu had sought a direction to the authorities concerned to ban all campus interviews and forbear the Central and state government undertakings from making such recruitments.

He alleged that in general campus interviews / selections were illegal as they resulted in parents making a rush to these institutions for admissions, a practice allegedly paving the way for collection of high capitation fees.

Campus interviews should not be allowed as many well qualified candidates were awaiting employment after their education, he said.

Counsel for impleaded candidates said much prejudice would be caused to his clients if they were not allowed to join posts for which they were selected, since campus recruitment is done solely on merit and after following the roster system.

They said it was not the petitioner's case that all vacancies in various PSUs were being filled up only through campus interviews.

The bench vacated the order, saying that in the light of the averments, it felt that if the interim order was allowed to continue, it would cause undue harassment to candidates.

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