M.NEELAKANDAN Vs. TAMIL NADU PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The relief sought for in the present writ petition is to direct the respondent to include the name of the petitioner in the result published by the respondent on 01.02.2019 for appointment by direct recruitment to the post of Agricultural Officer (Extension) in the TNAE Service with appropriate seniority and other attendant benefits on par with the candidates declared selected under the list dated 01.02.2019.

(2.) The respondent has invited applications for recruitment to the post of Agricultural Officer (Extension) in Tamil Nadu Agricultural Extension Services, by passing a notification in Notification No.9 of 2018. The petitioner, who has qualified as per the terms of the notification, applied for consideration of his candidature and the same was registered on 26.05.2018 through on-line. In one of the columns, in the application form, there was a question "Are you a Government Employee"?. The petitioner who is an employee of the State Bank of India as Junior Agriculture Associate, having been employed from 19.12.2016 till the date of his application, has answered as "No"? to the question, since, admittedly, he was not a Government Employee. The petitioner received hall ticket for the written examination held on 11.07.2018 and had appeared and the result of the written examination was published on 17.10.2018.

(3.) The petitioner was successful in the written examination and he was thereafter asked to appear for oral test, which was conducted on 04.01.2019. The petitioner was directed to produce all original documents in support of his claim. The petitioner submitted the required documents and after verification of the documents by the Officers, the petitioner was enquried as to why he has answered "No"? for the question whether he was a Government Employee. To this the petitioner clarified that the service of the State Bank of India comes under Public Sector Undertaking and not Government Service. Therefore, the petitioner correctly indicated the answer as no, since there was no other details sought in their question as to whether a person is employed in local body or public sector undertakings etc.