HYDERABAD: Marking the culmination of over two decades of litigation, the Telangana High Court has set aside a 2013 government order appointing 1,200 contractual multipurpose health workers.
A bench of Justices Sujoy Paul and Namavarapu Rajeshwar Rao directed that only the candidates whose names appeared on the original merit list were entitled to continue. The bench emphasised adherence to public policy and recruitment rules for filling vacancies.
The case originated with a 2002 notification for recruiting multipurpose health assistants (male), sparking the legal battle over minimum qualification requirements — Class X or Intermediate.
Although a merit list based on Intermediate qualifications was prepared, subsequent rulings, including one from the Supreme Court, clarified that Class X was the minimum qualification. This led to the invalidation of earlier selections and multiple rounds of redrawing merit lists, which in turn prompted claims and counter-claims by displaced and newly eligible candidates.
In 2013, the government issued GO 1,207, reinstating 1,200 terminated health workers on a contractual basis. This decision was challenged by petitioners who argued that it undermined merit and court orders.
Senior counsel M Surender Rao and others contended that accommodating less meritorious candidates violated recruitment rules and deprived eligible, unemployed youth of opportunities.
Special Government Pleader S Rahul Reddy argued that the creation of supernumerary posts and the granting of notional seniority to re-engaged employees by a lower court were erroneous. Meanwhile, senior counsel L Ravichander, representing unemployed youth, said that no new recruitment notifications had been issued since 2002, leaving many qualified candidates in limbo.