Court: Identify vacancies for SC/STs in 6 mths

The TN government, which has formed a special committee to identify accumulated backlog vacancies meant for SC/ST candidates in government service, has been directed by the Madras high court to complete the process in six months.The first bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Satish K Agnihotri and Justice M M Sundresh said the committee constituted on January 5, 2012 should compute the shortfall in vacancies for SCs and STs and finalise a programme to fill them. It should send a report to the government for appropriate orders, the bench said.
The matter relates to a PIL filed by Central and State Government SC/ST Employees Federation founder S Karuppiah, who said the state government went on a recruitment spree for other categories of candidates though a large number of posts meant for SC/ST candidates remained unfilled.
These vacancies should be filled prior to the commencement of new recruitment process, his counsel P Vijendran said.
In response, the government filed a counter-affidavit detailing the steps it had taken to address the issue. It said filling backlog vacancies was a continuing process and that it would be done after a series of measures to identify qualified candidates for the posts.
Source: The Times of India dt 19-7-14