The High Court of Karnataka
The time has come to state that in the realm of public employment, recruitment process has to be undertaken periodically with a fair degree of regularity, said the High Court of Karnataka, while pointing out that prolonged delay in filling up vacancies in public administration would severely affects youngsters.
Heartburn among young
“When accumulated vacancies are continued indefinitely that would not only affect the efficacy of public administration but render many qualified and eligible job aspirants age barred. It needs no research to know that there has been a heartburn among the younger generation legitimately aspiring for public employment that the recruitment process is not periodically undertaken. Even those bordering the age bar too would suffer a great anxiety,” the court observed.
A Division Bench, comprising Justice Krishna S. Dixit and Justice Vijaykumar A. Patil, made these observations while dismissing an appeal filed by Life Insurance Corporation (LIC), which had questioned a direction issued by a single judge to appoint a candidate who was on top of the shortlisted candidates to certain existing vacant posts during 2019-2020.
‘Curse of youth’
“It becomes more imperative when the evil of unemployment is plaguing our system. An argument to the contrary, if countenanced, would render a large chunk of eligible youths aspiring for public employment barred owing to age. Their curse would fall on all branches of the system. That is not a happy thing to happen in a welfare state,” the Bench observed.
Pointing out that “men are mortal and life is short,” the Bench said: “There is something called aging process that spares none. This needs to be kept in view by the authorities that be. A large chunk of educated youths cannot be deprived of the opportunity of public employment, which is constitutionally guaranteed.”
Assured right
The facile generalisation that there is no constitutionally assured right to public employment is to obscure the issue, the Bench said, while observing that “we need not pause to consider whether an abstract right of the kind, exists. Suffice it to say that in the ever-evolving human rights jurisprudence, such a right indisputably does exist, with a corresponding duty to undertake recruitment process resting on the public entities.”
The LIC being an instrumentality of State under Article 12 of the Constitution, it has to conduct itself as a model employer and not as a private entity acting upon its own whims and fancies, the Bench said.