Telangana HC overturns order on TSSPDCL's junior linemen recruitment

HYDERABAD: A division bench of the Telangana High Court, comprising Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Abhinand Kumar Shavili, has overturned an order of a single judge bench on appointment of junior linemen to the Telangana State Southern Power Distribution (TSSPDCL).

The division bench observed the Supreme Court had refused to interfere in the appointment of persons already appointed in pursuant to the notification and whose services have already been regularised as it would cause irreparable loss to the appointees and also adversely affect the smooth operation of the TSSPDCL.

The bench held that the single judge should not have gr-anted the writ petition requiring the appellant to consider the plea of respondents for appointment of junior linemen in violation of a SC order. The TSSPDCL had filed an appeal with the division bench after being dissatisfied with the single judge order.

In its appeal, the TSSPDCL said that it had issued recruitment notifications on June 8, 2006 and October 20, 2006, and subsequently filling 2,443 posts in accordance with the recruitment exercise and no further posts were available. "The single judge erroneously directed it to consider the cases of respondents in accordance with the notification," the TSSPDCL's petition said.

The petition pointed out that in a previous round of litigation brought in response to the same notification, two division benches reached two independent judgments. Following that, the case was appealed to the Supreme Court which explicitly declared that given that appointments were made a long time ago,  any interference would cause irreparable harm to them.

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