The court established that the provisions regarding the maintenance of a reserve list in the Tamil Nadu Government Servants Act are mandatory, contrary to the learned single Judge's ruling.

JUDGMENT :

R.SUBRAMANIAN, J.

Challenge in these appeals is to the order of the learned single Judge made in W.P.Nos.32640 & 32644 of 2023 dated 08.08.2024.

2. The writ petition in W.P.No.32640 of 2023 came to be filed by the petitioners therein, who are wait listed candidates seeking a writ of certiorarified mandamus to quash the communication dated 13.09.2023, in and by which, the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission (TNPSC)/ the 1st respondent herein informed the petitioners that it is not possible to conduct a third counselling by operating the reserve list in as much as the Commission does not maintain reserve list for recruitment, in which, a single selection process is undertaken for different posts in different Departments.

3. The second writ petition in W.P.No.32644 of 2023 was filed challenging Clause 4 of the Office Order No.134 dated 12.11.2020 issued by the 1st respondent / Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission, waiving the requirement to draw up a reserve list where, the selection is to multiple posts or one post in multiple Unit Offices made through a single competitive examination. The Commission issued a notification on 29.07.2022 inviting applications for direct recruitment to the posts of i) Field Surveyor, numbering 798, of which, four were carried forward vacancies, ii) Draftsmen numbering 236 in the Tamil Nadu Survey and Land Records Subordinate Service and iii) for 55 posts of Surveyor-cum-Assistant Draughtsman included in the Tamil Nadu Town and Country Planning Subordinate Service. The total number of posts, for which, applications were invited was 1089. A written examination was conducted on 06.11.2022. An addendum notification was issued on 14.02.2023 where the number of vacancies in the Field Surveyor was increased to 814 with 4 carried forward vacancies, the number of vacancies in the posts of Draftsman was increased to 243, while the number of vacancies in the Surveyor-cum-Assistant Draughtsman remained the same at 55.

4. On 15.02.2023, the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission published the marks and the rank list. On the same day, another addendum was issued by the TNPSC, increasing the number of posts in the vacancies of the Field Surveyor by 151 and the number of posts in Draftsman by another 75. Thus, the total number of vacancies went upto 1338. Thereafter, on 27.02.2023, the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission released a provisional list of selected candidates, calling them for physical certificate verification. Though certificate verification was sought for from 1287 candidates, only 1114 candidates were appointed. Out of the remaining posts for 173 posts, no appointment orders were issued and 492 posts were vacated by the candidates who joined the posts of Assistant Engineers. Therefore, there is a vacancy of 665 posts, which were advertised when the petitioners who were in the rank list, immediately, after the actually selected candidates found that the TNPSC conducted the 2nd Phase of physical certificate verification for only 121 vacancies by including 242 candidates in the certificate verification, leaving 244 vacancies.

5. According to the petitioners, if the second counselling has conducted for all the 365 vacancies, the petitioners would have been selected in the second counselling, since they had secured the required marks. When the petitioners sought for information under the RTI Act, the TNPSC replied on 06.06.2023 and 04.07.2023 stating that since the selection is for multiple posts under different Departments, the TNPSC does not maintain and operate a reserve list. This necessitated the filing of the instant writ petitions, challenging the communication of the TNPSC dated 13.09.2023 and Clause 4 of the Office Order dated 12.11.2020 which provides that a reserve list need not be drawn up where, the recruitment is to multiple posts or one posts in multiple unit of Offices made through a single competitive examination and the single rank list is drawn.

6. The main contention of the petiti