CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has restrained the authorities concerned from filing up vacant posts in the horticulture department by inducting staff from the agriculture department. Vacation judge K Ravichandra Babu gave the direction while passing interim orders on a writ petition from the TN Horticulture Officers Welfare Association. The matter will be taken up after summer vacation.
In the petition filed through counsel S Rajendran and S Namo Narayanan, the association, represented by its president G Alagumalai, submitted that the authorities were attempting to fill up the vacant posts in the horticulture department by inducting the staff from the agriculture department. If it was permitted, the rights, interests and service conditions of the members of the petitioner association would be greatly prejudiced. The staff belonging to the horticulture department were fully qualified in the field. The curriculum of B Sc (Agriculture) and BSc (Horticulture) was entirely different and launched with different sets of objectives. They could not be treated as equivalent degree programmes.
Therefore, inducting staff from the agriculture department to occupy technical posts in the horticulture department was per se illegal and against service law jurisprudence, they contended.