D.SOUNDARARAJAPANDIAN Vs. STATE OF TAMIL NADU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) There are cases which are not destined to end and these batch of Writ Petitions are falling into such a category. The tussle between the direct recruits/transfer recruits/promotees started in the year 1985, in the Commercial Tax Department and this is the third time the issue has again come up before this Court.

(2.) The first round of litigation started in the year 1985, when the directly recruited Assistant Commercial Tax Officers [hereinafter referred as "ACTO"] came before this Court and challenged the validity of the inter se seniority list published by the department. The issue that was raised before this Court was that the post of ACTO can be filled up under the Rules both through direct recruitment and by transfer from among the Assistants working in the Commercial Tax Department or in the Sales Tax Appellate Tribunal or in the Commercial Tax Branch of the Board of Revenue or the Revenue Department of he Secretariat. The Rules provided that 40% of the vacancies must be filled up by direct recruitment through TNPSC and 60% must be filled up by transfer. This post fell under the Subordinate Service and the next avenue of promotion is to the Post of Deputy Commercial Tax Officer. In the process of recruitment, the percentage of recruitment by way of transfer went beyond the percentage stipulated under the Rules and the candidates, who were brought in beyond the stipulated percentage were kept on a temporary/ad hoc basis. Simultaneously, the direct recruits also started coming in. The inter se seniority list was prepared and in the said list, even the temporary/ad hoc candidates, who were brought in through transfer, were also added and there was an anomaly in the entire seniority list.

(3.) The issue was considered in detail by a Division Bench of this Court in Sundarajan and Others .v. The Government of Tamil Nadu and Others in W.P.No.12786/1985, and a final judgment was passed on 19.06.1986. The Division Bench allowed the Writ Petition and the impugned provisional inter se seniority list and the four selected lists of DCTOS for the years 1982 to 1985 prepared by the Commercial Tax Department was quashed. The relevant portions of the Division Bench judgment is extracted hereunder: