BABULAL RATILAL GOHIL AND OTHERS Vs. REGIONAL DIRECTOR, EMPLOYEES STATE INSURANCE CORPORATION, AHMEDABAD, AND ANOTHER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a petition filed by twenty-two class IV employees, intermittently working for the period from one to six years in all, in various offices of the respondent-Corporation, which is under the control of the Regional Director with his office at Ahmedabad. The petitioners were working as daily wage earners and as already stated, the total length of their service with intermittent breaks is ranging from one year to six years, as elaborated in the petition. The respondent-Corporation has already held interviews for the posts of peons, for which the petitioners are otherwise eligble. They are registered with the Employment Exchange also. The Employment Exchange authorities, however, sent only certain names and not the names of the petitioners and only those whose names were sent, alone were interviewed of the post of peons, The petitioners' grievance before me in this petition is that as they are eligible and as their names are also registered with the Employment Exchange, they also should be likewise given an opportunity of employment at the hands of the respondent-Corporation and their being denied this opportunity only on the ground that their names were not sent by the Employment Exchange, the same works to their detriment and violative of Article 16 of the Constitution of India.

(2.) The matter was admitted and is posted for hearing before me today. When the petitioners are already working in the very offices and when they are eligible for being considered for appointment as peons, there is no reason why their cases should not be considered. The ground that their names are not sent by the Employment Exchange is not a legal ground put forward and in my view it is extraneous. No justification for this is proved.

(3.) In above view of the matter, the petition is allowed by making the rule absolute by directing the respondent-Corporation to consider the cases of these petitioners also and then decide the matter finally in accordance with the rules and regulations. It follows a for that that the selection made heretofore without considering the cases of petitioners will be declared to be set at naughty and the respondent-Corporation is directed to consider the cases of all the applicants afresh, in accordance with the rules and regulations, whatever they are. Rule is accordingly made absolute with no order as to costs.