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Association of Engineers & Ors. Etc. vs. The State of Tamil Nadu & Ors. Etc.

Not available · 2024 INSC 306Decided 16 Apr 2024
Not available
Justice B.R. Gavai · Justice Sandeep Mehta

Background

Tamil Nadu government rules allowed certain categories of subordinate engineering staff (Junior Draughting Officers, Draughting Officers, Overseers, Technical Assistants) with the requisite degree and experience to be promoted to Assistant Engineer posts by transfer, filling a quota of vacancies alongside direct recruitment. When the State, facing a shortage of eligible candidates for the transfer quota, appointed a batch of Technical Assistants as Assistant Engineers in 2006, the Association of Engineers (representing directly-recruited engineers) challenged this as violating an earlier tribunal ruling and encroaching on posts meant for others. The dispute wound through the Tamil Nadu Administrative Tribunal, a learned Single Judge, and the Division Bench of the Madras High Court, producing a batch of related appeals before the Supreme Court, some also involving writ petitions that had been decided by the High Court without properly considering the facts.

Decision Breakdown

For the main set of appeals, the Supreme Court held that the continued service of the Technical Assistants who had been serving as Assistant Engineers for about 18 years did not amount to unfairly displacing the 75% quota reserved for the Engineers' Association's members, and found no reason under its discretionary Article 136 jurisdiction to disturb the outcome reached below: the appeals were dismissed. For a separate connected batch of appeals (arising from two writ petitions the High Court had decided without properly engaging with the facts or arguments), both sides agreed the matters should go back for fresh consideration, so the Court allowed those appeals and remanded them to the Madras High Court for a proper re-hearing.

Lesson Learnt

Long, undisturbed service under an appointment (here, about 18 years) is itself a weighty factor courts will consider before unsettling it on a technical service-law dispute, and the Supreme Court's discretionary power to intervene in such matters is used sparingly, only where real injustice is shown.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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