Terming it illegal, HC quashes appointment of over 100 MPCB employees

NAGPUR: The Aurangabad bench of Bombay High Court has quashed the appointment of over 100 employees of Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) appointed through an advertisement in 2009. The court has directed the board to make fresh appointments within four months.
While hearing petitions which were clubbed as they were seeking similar interventions, the court pronounced a common verdict on Monday stating that the appointments across the state were "illegal". Among them, over 20 officials are in Mumbai, over 12 in Nagpur, around 10 in Aurangabad and Pune and others in Raigad, Chandrapur, Latur, Thane, Satara, Kolhapur, Kalyan, Sangli, Nashik, Akola, Amravati, Nanded, Ahmednagar and other cities.

Apart from the employees, the department of environment and forests of state government and MPCB chairman and member secretary were the main respondents.

According to one of the petitions, the board had appointed more candidates than the number of posts which were advertised.

On January 21, 2009, the MPCB had issued an advertisement for filling 34 vacancies for the post of 'field officer' at different centres. "However, the board selected 105 candidates and kept another 39 people in the waiting list," the petition stated.

On this, a division bench of justices RD Dhanuka and Sunil Kotwal ruled that MPCB should not have appointed excess candidates. "The board would have been justified in appointing more candidates if there was a note in the advertisement that the posts were likely to be increased," the bench stated.

Another petition pointed out that the board did not comply with the reservation criteria of 5% for project affected persons (PAP). "Though the advertisement did not mention about reservation under the PAP category, MPCB illegally appointed six persons in that category," it added.

Observing that some of the petitioners, who were eligible to be appointed under PAP category, were deprived of the opportunity, the court stated that the lapses on the part of the board were serious and affected the rights of various candidates.

Highlighting more breaches of norms, the court's order stated that no woman candidate was appointed in the selection committee, which is mandatory as per the government resolution dated December 10, 2004 and October 19, 2007. "In our view, the constitution of the selection committee itself was not proper and in accordance with the two GRs," it said.

Apart from this, the advertisement was reportedly not published on the website of the state government or of employment exchange.

In view of these "irregularities", the court ordered the board to commence the process of filling-up the posts again and finish the selection process within four months. However, till then, the board employees will not be removed from their services but will "not be granted promotion or other benefits".

With their fate hanging in balance, the employees are now planning to move the apex court. "Most of them have crossed the required age limit and cannot re-apply for their posts. We will either seek a clarification from the same court or move to the Supreme Court," said Pradnya Talekar, counsel for the employees.