Inform ECI of court order and recruit 525, Tangedco told

Recording the submission of the counsel for Election Commission of India (ECI) that the code of conduct in force in view of the general election would not curtail the powers of the court to issue direction to the authorities, the Madras High Court has directed Tangedco to inform the orders of the court to ECI and appoint the 525 candidates selected for the post of technical assistants pending since 2016.

A division bench comprising Justice S Manikumar and Justice Subramonium Prasad said, “In as much as the selection process has already been completed, which apparently is fair, we direct the Chief Engineer (Personnel), Tangedco, to allot the selected candidates to the respective Superintending Engineers for issuance of orders of appointment within a week.” The bench also directed Tangedco’s Chief Engineer (Personnel) to publish the list of selected candidates in the official website.

The filling up of as many as 525 technical assistant posts through direct recruitment was advertised on February 29, 2016. Since then it has been bogged with numerous litigations between those holding engineering degrees and those with diploma. In fact, even after the written exams were held, the interview was put on hold.

However, taking note of the fact that 2,625 candidates were found eligible out of which 289 candidates were degree holders and 2,336 candidates were diploma holders, the bench on January 30, 2018 had directed Tangedco to conduct the interview for the eligible candidates as per the service regulations and applying rule of reservation and complete the exercise within two weeks.

Pursuant to this, the Chief Engineer had submitted that the interview for 2,625 candidates were held between February 11 and February 15 by five committees formed for this purpose. Further, as against 525 vacant posts, 458 diploma holders and 67-degree holders without prescribed basic qualification in diploma have been selected.