NE LEGAL BUREAU
CHENNAI, JULY 24
The Madras High Court has held that revised seniority lists, prepared in accordance with the marks obtained by candidates recruited to the post of Civil Judge (Junior Division), would prevail irrespective of the order in which they were shown by the TNPSC or roster positions.
If two or more appointees obtain identical marks, the older or oldest in age, as the case may be, will occupy the higher or highest position between such candidates in the seniority list, the first bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy said.
In its recent order, the bench made it clear that as far as the 2020 recruitment process is concerned, since the appointments have not yet been made, the seniority list must be prepared in terms of this order and on the basis of the descending order of marks obtained by the appointees at the recruitment examination.
To clarify for all purposes, the person with the highest marks must be placed first in the seniority list and so on till the person with the lowest marks in the last position, irrespective of what slots they may have occupied as per the roster.
The judges also clarified that any fixation or re-fixation of seniority made in accordance with law for judges recruited prior to 2009 will remain unaffected by this order.
The bench was disposing of a batch of writ petitions from N Vasudevan and two others seeking to quash an order dated March 10, 2009 of the Registrar-General insofar as it erroneously fixed the seniority of the petitioners.
The bench said the direction will apply only to those recruited to the post of Civil Judge (Junior Division) from 2009.
The dates of appointment are of crucial importance when preparing the seniority list, but when a common recruitment process is undertaken, all new recruits must be deemed to have been appointed on the same date and their order of seniority will be in accordance with the marks obtained in the recruitment examination.
It will be irrespective of the date of joining and regardless of the positions they occupied as per the roster, the bench noted.
The judges, however, said the promotions obtained till today by candidates who have been recruited as Civil Judge (Junior Division) in or after the year 2009 will remain unaffected by this order, in the sense that no one already promoted should be demoted to a lower post.
Even if the revision results in a higher ranked officer remaining in a lower post than a lower ranked officer, promotion will be on the basis of the prospective vacancy in the promotional post.
For Civil Judges (Senior Division) who may be eligible to take the limited competitive examination in future, all judges ranked higher than the last-placed Civil Judge who is entitled to take the examination on the basis of the time spent in the post, will be eligible irrespective of not having spent the requisite time in the post, the bench said.
