The court ruled that public service commissions must follow merit orders in filling relinquished vacancies to promote fair employment and avoid leaving posts unfilled.

ORDER :

Nagesh Bheemapaka, J.

In this Writ Petition, petitioners seek a direction to respondents to undertake the process as required under Rule 6(A) of TGPSC Rules of Procedure and identify the number of relinquished / unfilled vacancies and to further direct the Commission to fill those relinquished vacancies pursuant to the Notification No. 54 of 2017 dated 21.10.2017 by considering the cases of petitioners whose certificate verification was already undertaken and not to notify the said vacancies in the next recruitment.

2. According to Sri J. Sudheer, learned Senior Counsel appearing for petitioners, as per Rule 6(A) of the TELANGANA STATE PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION RULES , if any selected candidate does not take up the offer of appointment, then the same has to be offered to the next meritorious candidate in the order of merit. Admittedly, in the instant case, TGPSC has not followed the said Rule, thereby many of the notified posts are lying vacant, submits learned Senior Counsel.

3. The Recruiting Agency - TGPSC issued various Notifications for filling up of vacancies of Trained Graduate Teachers in various subjects, Secondary Grade Teachers in English and Telugu Media, Hostel Welfare Officers in Grade-II in the hostels run for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Backward Classes, Language Pandits and School Librarians.

4. The selection process in respect of all the above posts include written examination, certificate verification in the ratio of 1:2 and eventual selection in the ratio of 1:1 for one to get selected to the posts, referred to supra. Though all the Notifications were independently issued by TGPSC and selection process conducted separately, results of the written examination were declared proximately close to one another.

5. As can be seen from the list of posts for which selection process took place, general educational qualifications required for the posts notified are by and large common, but the hierarchy and the place of work would be one of the crucial factors for the candidates to take a call where they find their names in the list of selected candidates suitable for certificate verification. To elaborate this point a little further, it would be necessary to state that a Trained Graduate Teacher is definitely superior to a Secondary Grade Teacher; similarly, a Librarian in a Junior College is superior to a Librarian in the School. Insofar as Hostel Welfare Officers are concerned, the Hostels run for the Scheduled Tribe candidates in scheduled areas would normally be preferred by candidates belonging to the said group as their possibilities of transfers would be far and few and therefore, a person who is selected both for a BC Hostel and SC Hostel would definitely not prefer to participate in the further process of selection in respect of posts to which they would be given a second preference.

6. The recruitment procedure is regulated by the TELANGANA STATE PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION RULES . The system of maintenance of wait list is dispensed with and PSC is required to prepare the merit list to the extent of vacancies notified only. For any reason, selected candidates do not join in the post offered to him or after joining the post, he leaves the employment, the said vacancies go to the next recruitment. However, the fact remains that many times, candidates do not join the post to which they are selected or though they join the post, leave the employme