MADURAI: Observing that granting age relaxation is a policy decision of the government and that the court cannot interfere in the same, the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court recently dismissed a batch of petitions seeking direction to the State government to provide age relaxation to candidates belonging to Other Category (OC) to apply for pharmacist posts.
The petitioners challenged a recruitment notification issued by the Medical Services Recruitment Board in 2019, in which the maximum age limit for OC category candidates had been fixed as 30 years. They wanted an age relaxation similar to the one granted by the government in 2012.
Justice SM Subramaniam, who heard the petitions, noted that the age relaxation given in 2012 was provided only for the Siddha wing of the medical department considering the dearth of candidates in the Siddha line. “Therefore, the same yardstick cannot be adopted for Pharmacists in allopathy,” he added. Moreover, the benefit granted in 2012 expired in 2017 and the same cannot be extended by the court for a further period, the judge added.