The court ruled that employment exchanges are not liable for negligence in registration errors and that candidates must act promptly to rectify issues.

ORDER :

The above writ petition has been filed praying for a writ of mandamus calling for the records of the 3^rd respondent pertaining to the petitioner's order made in No.Nee.Vaa3/22159/2013 dated 30.01.2014 and quash the same, consequent to direct the respondents 1 to 5 to pay compensation of Rs.50,00,000/- jointly and severally to the petitioner for the reason of unfairly denial of appointment to the cadre of Assistant Engineer to the petitioner in the year 2005 & 2007 respectively and further direct the 4^th and 5^th respondents to pay compensation of Rs.50,00,000/- or in the alternative to appoint the petitioner as Assistant Engineer with all attendant benefits including monitory benefits.

2. The service matrix of the petitioner is as follows -

2(a) During the year 1994, when the 3^rd respondent's office namely Professional and Executive Employment Office, Chennai was computerised, the petitioner's community as MBC was not updated and hence his registration existed under Open Competition category. During the year 1994, when computerisation work was taken up by the office of the 3^rd respondent, more than 50,000 registration details have been keyed in computer within a short spell of time by hiring man power from out sourcing. During February 2005, the petitioner was nominated by the office of the 3^rd respondent and selected for the post of “Computer Programmer” in the office of the District Programme Co-ordinator, Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, Tirunelveli. Consequent to this, the petitioner joined the said post during April 2005. When the result of selection was intimated to the office of the 3^rd respondent, the petitioner's registration was removed from the live register as “placed”like other regular placements. In the mean time, during the year 2007, Tamil Nadu Electricity Board notified 6 vacancies of Assistant Engineer (Computer) to the office of the 3^rd respondent. In order to avoid omission in nomination, wide press release was given on 20.04.2007 by the office of the 3^rd respondent requesting the eligible registrants to verify whether their names were available in the proposed list. The petitioner's name did not figure in the above list and hence he did not turn up to the office of the 3^rd respondent. But when the petitioner approached the 3^rd respondent on 12.09.2007, he was given to understand that the registration particulars of the petitioner has already been transferred to dead register due to his appointment in the Office of District Programme Co-ordinator, Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, Tirunelveli.

2(b) The petitioner's registration has not been completely deleted from the live register of the office of the third respondent. Due to his appointment in the office of the District Programme Co-ordinator, Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, Tirunelveli, his registration details have been classified as “placed”. However, the petitioner's original seniority dated 28.01.1993 was restored on 11.10.2007 itself when the petitioner produced all the records connected with his appointment in Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, Tirunelveli.

2(c) During the year 2007, the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board has notified six vacancies of Assistant Engineer (Computer Science). Out of this, one vacancy has been reserved for General MBC Non-Priority and one vacancy for General Turn Non-Priority and remaining four vacancies was earmarked for other categories. For this vacancy, candidates registered upto 22.07.1994 were nominated under Most Backward Class Non-Priority category and candidates registered up to 25.03.1992 were nominated under General Turn Non-Priority category. The above said cut-off date for the above vacancy has been advertised in the media on 20.04.2007 to enable the registrants to verify the chances of their nomination if they were within the cut-off date. But the petitio