R SARAVANAN Vs. CHAIRMAN TAMILNADU ELECTRICITY BOARD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THESE two writ petitions were filed by the petitioners seeking for a direction to the respondents to appoint them to the post of Helpers by giving them preference to their apprenticeship training completed by them prior to 13.9.1988 and also on the basis of the order made in W.A.Nos.1596 and 1597 of 2010, dated 16.11.2010.

(2.) IN the first writ petition, there are four writ petitioners and in the second writ petition, there is only one petitioner. The deponent to the affidavit in the first writ petition as well as the petitioner in the second writ petition are already 44 years. IN fact their own claim was that they have completed the training in the Apprenticeship scheme floated by the Electricity Board even before September, 1988 which is 22 years before. The petitioners have completed apprenticeship training and since their completion of apprenticeship in the Board, several recruitments have taken place in the respondent Board. Nowhere they have stated as to what they were doing all these years. The petitioners are not eligible to get an entry into employment in the Electricity Board as they were overaged as per the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board Service Regulations.

(3.) IN W.P.No.1633 of 2011, even the petitioners' case which was ordered earlier in W.P.No.5666 of 2004, dated 9.3.2004, was only to consider the case of the petitioners in the light of the Supreme Court judgment in P.Arul's case (cited supra) in Civil Appeal Nos. 5285 to 5328 of 1996. IN the second case, there was no reasonable explanation as to what the petitioner was doing since the last 22 years. IN fact, a division bench of this court in P.Arul and 237 others Vs. Tamil Nadu Electricity Board reported in 1996 WLR 215 had upheld the claim of trained apprenticeship and had directed the Board to grant appointments to the trained apprentices. Speaking for the division bench, D.Raju, J (as he then was) in paragraph 30 gave the following directions: