The High Court on Friday gave one week’s time to the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) to respond to a petitioner who alleged that it committed several irregularities in filling five vacant posts of assistant director (Legal) in Hyderabad.
Petitioner Sardar Singh Palthiya, an advocate belonging to a Scheduled Tribe, applied for one of the posts after IRDA issued a notification on Oct. 23, 2010 calling for applications for the five posts. Two posts were reserved for ST candidates and one each for BCs and SCs. One was unreserved.
The petitioner’s counsel said Sardar Singh was successful in the written test and attended an interview conducted by IRDA on March 24, 2011. He was the only ST candidate among the 31 who attended interviews that day. Since there are two posts reserved for STs, he was confident that he would succeed.
Having received no information for five months, he made enquiries through the Right to Information and learnt that the authorities had failed him.
He listed the discrepancies in the recruitment process and challenged the IRDA authorities in court.
According to the petitioner, the authorities selected three general candidates though only one post was earmarked for the unreserved category. They unlawfully pulled one ST post and one SC post into the general category, he contended.
When the matter came up for hearing before judge G Chandraiah, he found that things were not going in the right direction and directed IRDA to keep one post meant for STs vacant till further orders.
Later, the case passed to judge P V Sanjay Kumar as per the subject roster and he too had found fault with IRDA. Later, the subject roster changed again and the matter was listed before judge Noushad Ali, who gave IRDA one week’s time to respond to the litigant.