CHENNAI: Holding that the post of law officers is neither a civil post nor are they government employees, the Madras HC has dismissed a PIL filed by VCK leader Thol Thirumavalavan seeking orders to the government to provide reservation for SC/ST communities in the appointment of law officers.
The first bench of Chief Justice SV Gangapurwala and Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy on Thursday dismissed the petition which was filed in 2017. Discounting the contentions of the petitioner based on a Supreme Court order in the case of State of Karnataka vs Umadevi and others, the bench said this judgment is concerned with the procedure and methodology in public employment.
The court said it cannot be held that reservation - vertical and/or horizontal - needs to be provided while appointing the law officers by the government and the procedure laid down does not suffer from the vice of arbitrariness, nor it can be said it is not transparent.
Further, the court said the relationship between the government and the law officers is “purely a professional relationship” and not that of a “master and servant”. Their appointment is at the discretion of the government which can terminate the services while these officers can also disengage themselves from the services.