Principal Secy directed to prescribe education limit for TNPSC Group III, IV

A petition filed by M Sakkaraichamy came up for hearing before Justice SM Subramaniam. The petitioner, who completed BE (Mechanical Engineering) in 1999, claimed that he participated in process of selection for appointment to post of Assistant in Revenue Department. Despite having excelled in written examination and oral interview, the case of petitioner was not considered on account of the fact that the petitioner being a BE degree holder, declared as not possessing requisite educational qualifications with reference to notification issued.

The petitioner counsel referring to GO dated October 7, 2009, stated that professional degrees were equated with Arts degrees for purpose of selection in government services. But, the GO was absolutely absent in respect of the qualification for the particular post.

After observing, the Justice said acute unemployment issues prompted this over qualified persons to apply for such posts under Group IV services as well as for the basic services. However, the competent authorities may not be in a position to effectively extract work from these employees with reference to the jobresponsibility.

Equally, candidates, who are possessing under qualification, could not be allowed to perform higher responsibility. All these aspects should be considered by the competent authorities of the State government and its organizations or corporations, while undertaking the process of issuing recruitment notification to the particular post or cadre. Currently, minimum educational qualifications and other related criteria were prescribed by the employers. However, no maximum educational qualifications were prescribed, so as to restrict the opportunity to more suitable candidates. This being the reason, these over qualified persons and professional degree holders were participating in the recruitment process for the posts under Group-4 services as well as basic services.

Therefore, the Justice rejected petitioner’s request for relief and ordered the respondent to complete the exercise within a period of twelve weeks after reviewing rules connected to selection and appointment to various posts, more specifically for posts under Group III and IV services and basic services as well.