The Allahabad High Court has sought response from the State Government and the Commission in three weeks on a petition challenging the validity of the Preliminary Eligibility Test conducted by the UP Subordinate Services Selection Commission for health workers and supervisor recruitment.
The Division Bench of Justice Sunita Agarwal and Justice Sadhna Rani Thakur on Thursday passed this order, while hearing a petition filed by Priyanka Shukla and 11 others.
The petitioners claimed to be working on the post of Auxillary Nurse Midwives on a contractual basis. It is contended that as per the original rules, the vacancies for the post of Health Worker (Female) were to be filled batch-wise.
At one point in time, some of the petitioners had approached the Court, seeking quashing of the advertisement for direct recruitment to the post of Health Worker (female) and mandamus commanding the respondents to appoint them on the basis of their batch-wise seniority and also to relax the age limit, as those candidates had become overage.
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The Writ Petition with the connected writ petitions was allowed by the judgement and order dated November 10, 2017. The direction was issued to the respondents to consider the petitioners for appointment on the post of Health Worker (Female) as advertised on December 1, 2016, on the basis of their batch-wise seniority. Some of the petitioners were party to the said Writ Petition, but it is not known as to what happened regarding the candidature of those petitioners.
Rule 5(2), 10 & 15 of Uttar Pradesh Medical Health & Family Welfare Department Health Workers and Health Supervisors (Female Male) Non -Gazetted Service Rules 2018 have been challenged in the plea on the ground that the existing vacancies prior to commencement of the Rules could not be included for selection through Subordinate Services Selection Commission. The notification issued by the Commission for holding the preliminary eligibility test, 2021 advertisement no 01-Pariksha/2021 is also the subject matter of challenge, the petition said.
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The Standing Counsel appearing for the State respondent and Siddharth Singhal, Counsel for the respondent Commission, prayed for and were granted three weeks time to file the counter affidavit. One week was granted to file a rejoinder affidavit, the Court ordered.
“We make it clear that no further time shall be granted to file counter-affidavits in as much as the advertisement for holding preliminary eligibility test-2021 is also the subject matter of challenge in the petition,” the Court said. The Court has fixed the next hearing of the petition on August 13.