Stop campus recruitments, PSUs told

Madras HC Orders Status Quo For 2 Weeks 

The Madras high court has restrained public sector undertakings (PSUs) from holding campus recruitments and asked them to maintain status quo for two weeks. 
    The first bench comprising Chief Justice M Y Eqbal and Justice T S Sivagnanam issued the interim direction on a public interest writ petition filed by advocate M Palanimuthu, who said PSUs should not conduct such recruitments without any job notification and without following reservation rules. 
    When the matter first came up for hearing on December 23, 2011, the bench had issued notices to several PSUs named in the petition, the Centre and the state government, and asked them to file their replies in six weeks. On Tuesday, when it was taken up for further hearing, counsel for PSUs sought more time to file reply. Giving them more time, the judges said, “In the mean time, status quo with regard to campus selection shall be maintained by the respondents concerned.” 
    On December 23, the bench had said: “The moot question that calls for consideration is whether the procedure followed for campus interviews by the PSUs is justified and whether there are chances of good candidates being discriminated against and candidates who got registered in employment exchanges not getting a chance.” 
    Palanimuthu said that as per rules, recruitment for various posts in PSUs should be done either through employment exchanges or through public advertisements by inviting applications from eligible candidates throughout the country. Instead of following these rules, PSUs of late have started recruiting employees through campus placements, he said. 
    Besides violating job rules, these PSUs thereby unwittingly contribute to the demand for private educational institutions which organize such placement drives, Palanimuthu said. Selection process cannot be confined only to institutions organizing campus placements, he said. 
    Besides seeking a stay on campus recruitment drives by PSUs such as HAL, HPCL, NTPC, Isro and IOC, Palanimuthu wanted the court to cancel appointments already made through the process. He said his representation to the authorities did not evoke any response, leaving him with no choice except approaching the high court for remedy. He wanted all PSUs to be banned from participating in campus recruitments in institutions. 
    The interim order may not have much impact on this year’s placement season as the recruitment process has come to an end in most institutions. “PSUs like the navratnas have been hiring from campuses for their engineering divisions for a long time. This is especially true for companies like NTPC, BHEL, SAIL etc. More than 50% of their core division strength comes from campuses. In recent years, they have also started hiring from premier business schools,” said E Balaji, CEO of MaFoi Randstad.

Source: The Times of India dt 22.02.2012