Apex court allows absorption of 1347 SC, ST contract engineers

 The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed a plea for absorption of as many as 1,347 assistant engineers and junior engineers of Scheduled Castes and Tribes category, who were working in different departments of Karnataka government on contractual basis since 2003.

A bench of Justices J S Khehar and R Banumathi passed the order invoking inherent power of the Supreme Court under Article 142 of the Constitution to issue the direction for giving permanent position to the petitioner engineers.

The apex court disposed of 1,347 petitions filed by each affected candidate after the Karnataka HC had in 2012 rejected their plea for making them permanent after serving various departments for over 10 years. It said that the engineers who possessed the requisite qualification in 2001 would be absorbed based on their merit.

The court's order came as a huge relief to the engineers who worked in Public Works department, Panchayat Raj and Water Resources and Rural Development.

Senior advocate Mahalakshmi Pavani, appearing for the petitioner-engineers, contended that High Court had virtually re-written the recruitment rules by frustrating the government notification relating to The Absorption Rules, 2005.

She submitted that the High Court, without going into the very object of recruitment of permanent employees, decided to set the clock back to November 21, 2001, the date when the rules came into force with an upper age limit of 40 years.

“By the judgment dated 13.07.2012, the HC virtually raised the upper age limit by as many as 11 years making persons who are now 51 years of age, eligible and entitled to be considered for recruitment against the backlog vacancies of a period earlier to 2001 while the age of retirement in the state is 60, with the result, any person now appointed for the first time pursuant to the impugned directions, will have to undergo probation for a period of two years and on successful completion thereof, will have only seven years left before retirement,” the petitioners claimed.

The High Court had held 2005 Rules of the State government as violative of fundamental right to equality though the government decided regularise services of the engineers by appreciating their services as contract engineers as they were responsible for the successful completion of various projects and belonged to socially backward class, the counsel contended.