The seniority assigned to the compassionate appointees was in accordance with the rules and should not be disturbed at this stage.

JUDGMENT :

Rastogi, J.

1. Leave granted.

2. The instant appeals have been preferred by the officers who are direct recruits selected as Assistant Engineers after going through the process of selection held by the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission(hereinafter being referred to as the “Commission”), claiming their seniority qua such of the candidates who were appointed as Assistant Engineers at different points of time as compassionate appointees and prayed that in the seniority list of Assistant Engineers which came to be published by the State authorities as on 1st January 2004, the present batch of appellants who are direct recruits appointed as Assistant Engineers be ranked senior to the candidates who were appointed as Assistant Engineers on compassionate ground.

3. Their grievance primarily is that after the process of selection was initiated by issuance of an advertisement by the Commission, such of the candidates who had either not participated in the process of open selection or had failed to qualify but because of losing their breadwinner, have been directly appointed as Assistant Engineers as compassionate appointees and are placed en bloc senior to the direct recruits Assistant Engineers and that is in violation of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution and of Rule 35 of the Tamil Nadu State and Subordinate Services Rules, 1955(hereinafter being referred to as the “Rules 1955”).

4. Seniority either inter se or between direct recruits and promotees or recruitment made by different sources is being governed by a statutory scheme of rules laying down the principles according to which the seniority list has to be determined but experience shows that it has never been finalized and always remain a subject matter of challenge and that challenge is not restricted upto the High Courts, but such challenges are always settled after the final judgment of this Court and this creates a lot of disharmony amongst the officers and since this Court is also not in a position to settle such matters at the earliest, delay remains inevitable and becomes fatal to the right of individual and indeed impairs the efficiency, commitment and devotion with which the employee is supposed to work and discharge his public duty to the satisfaction of the authority.

5. The case before us is also a live illustration of this kind. The service condition of the Assistant Engineers who became member of the Tamil Nadu Highways Engineering Service are governed by the Special Rules to the Tamil Nadu Highways Engineering Service and the post of Assistant Engineer with which we are presently concerned is indicated in the Schedule appended thereto in category (5) which provides the modes of recruitment to the service which reads as under:

TABLE