SC upholds decision of Tamil Nadu govt on seniority of PG as

6/9/2009 The Supreme Court has upheld the decision of Tamil Nadu government to place large number of post-graduate teachers recruited on temporary basis, who were subsequently regularised, to grant them seniority below the last candidate selected by Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission (TNPSC) Tamil Nadu government had issued an order dated December 12, 1988, regularising all post-graduate assistants in higher secondary schools who were appointed on temporary basis during the period 1978-88. This order of the government was challenged in the Madras High Court, which disposed of the writ petition with certain directions which included that in seniority, the teachers, who had been regularised vide government order dated 12/12/1988 should be placed in seniority below the candidate selected by (TNPSC). The appellants M P Palanisami and others challenged the High Court decision in the Supreme Court on the grounds that regularised teachers must be given seniority from the date of their joining service as temporary teachers under rule 10 (a) (i) (1) of general rules of TNPSC. The apex court, however, in its judgment while dismissing the petition noted "the government temporarily appointed some teachers after April 28, 1981. It is relevant to mention here that at that time also, the appellants had not become members of the service, since they were only ad-hoc appointees. It is also relevant to note that these appellants had the option to compete in the said examination. "They shunned from competing against the fresh candidate appearing in TNPSC." A bench comprising Justices Tarun Chatterjee and V S Sirpurkar also noted that the petitioners themselves accepted the temporary appointment and never challenged that order of regularisation and now they could turn around and say that they would accept only that part of the government order which was favourable to them and reject the unfavourable part. The apex court finally concluded by observing that "the contention of the appellants is that they had all the qualifications for holding the post of PG assistant when they were temporarily appointed and though the government in regularizing them were correct, however the provision that their seniority will be below from those, who were selected by TNPSC in 1986 is not correct and cannot be accepted. "Once they chose to accept the regularization which was conditional then it would have to be born in mind that they have accepted the conditions also." Senior counsel Nalini Chidambaram, M N Krishnamani and Indu Malhotra appeared for the petitioners, while Krishnan Venugopal appeared for the other side. The 25-page judgment has been written by Justic Sirpurkar of the bench.