Madras HC orders status quo on nurses’ recruitment in Tamil Nadu

CHENNAI: The HC has ordered maintenance of status quo with regard to recruitment of nurses in GHs. Justice R Mahadevan granted the injunction till October 29 while passing interim orders on a writ petition from G Udaya Kumar last week.

According to advocate Puhazh Gandhi, the Medical Services Recruitment Board (MSRB) in July, 2016 published a list of 498 nurses and invited them to join duty pursuant to their qualifying the examination conducted following a notification dated April 19, 2015.

The said list was captioned as “list of provisionally selected candidates against not joined/resigned/un-authorised absent (left without notice) vacancies of nurses.

Again in October, 2016, the MSRB issued a list of 182 candidates, captioned as ‘list of provisionally selected candidates against not joined vacancies of nurses - substitute List-II’ and appointed them. While so, the MSRB issued yet another notification on September 12 this year, calling 950 nurses to be appointed in the services of the department. No proper reason was cited about the selection criteria of such nurses.

Gandhi submitted that every year a large number of vacancies arose and more than 40,000 nurses were graduating. The authorities have a duty to conduct a fair and impartial selection process every year or as and when the vacancies arise to give equal opportunity to every nurse who graduates each year.

The authorities cannot fill vacancies till the last person is appointed pursuant to the exam conducted following the April, 2015 notification.

This action of the authorities amounted to a negation of equal rights for those, who qualify every year and denying them an equal opportunity - which was a violation of Article 21 and 14 of the Constitution, he added.