English advertisement for post of sweepers draws Judges’ flak

A division bench comprising Justice M Sathyanarayanan and Justice N. Seshasayee before whom heated arguments prevailed in this regard, allowed the exams to be as scheduled on Sunday. However, it held that the recruitment would be subject to the outcome of the present writ petition. Advocate M Radhakrishnan appearing on behalf of the petitioner contended that the MHC in a bid to recruit 68 sweepers and 59 sanitary workers had come out with a recruitment notification, as well as annexures running to 13 pages in English. 

Wondering aloud as to whether those applying for the post of sweepers and sanitary workers would be conversant in English to decipher the requisites needed for applying to the posts, cited a Supreme Court order, which clearly stated that recruitment notifications by public bodies should be issued in English as well as in a vernacular language.

He further contended that the MHC had issued an advertisement in this regard in a Tamil daily. But peculiarly the advertisement was in English. He said the whole purpose of issuing an advertisement in a Tamil paper is thwarted when the content is in English. 

Noting that the advertisement failed to serve the purpose it was meant for in reaching out to all those who wanted to apply, he said even the advertisement was sketchy with vital details absent. He noted that out of the 3000 odd applications received, over 1000 applications were rejected for various reasons such as failure to enclose supporting documents, overage and applications not being submitted in the prescribed format. 

Earlier, the first bench comprising Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M Sundar recused themselves from hearing the public interest litigation on the basis that the Chief Justice was part of the recruitment committee and that she would have signed on any of the process at some stage. Following this, the bench posted the matter before the division bench comprising judges who were not part of the recruitment committee.