Roster position will not determine seniority of judges recruited after applying Roster system of Reservation: Madras High Court

The earlier roster position of a judge recruited after applying the roster system for reservation, will not determine the judge's seniority vis à vis other recruited judges, the Madras High Court has ruled (M Vasudevan v. The Registrar General and 194 ors)..Rather, once judges have been recruited after following the roster system for reservation, their seniority thereafter would be determined based on the marks obtained during the recruitment exam alone, the Court held.,."The issue is no longer res integra and it may no longer be contended that the roster position would determine the seniority of the recruits in any recruitment process," a Bench Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy found. .The ruling was passed also bearing in mind the disadvantage a meritorious reserved category candidate (MRC candidate) would suffer if the roster system is followed in deciding seniority. MRC candidates are reserved-category candidates who were able to score enough marks to secure a post in the general list..Explaining how the implementation of a roster system in deciding seniority would penalise the merit of an MRC candidate, the Court said:."When merit is given recognition by treating an MRC to be entitled to a general category seat, the position that may have been occupied by the MRC in the roster is lost to him and he occupies a lower slot on the roster. In such a scenario, if the roster system is taken to be the order of seniority among the recruited candidates, it would result in an MRC being penalised for his merit.".The Court, however, clarified that the present ruling will not upset promotions already carried out. The order would also not be applicable to civil judge recruitment predating the 2009 recruitment, since such recruitment had not been challenged. .The Court proceeded to issue the following directions insofar as the preparing of seniority lists for civil judges recruited after 2009 are concerned:(i) The revised seniority lists as prepared in accordance with the marks obtained by the candidates recruited to the post of Civil Judge (Junior Division) would prevail irrespective of the order in which they may have been shown by the Public Service Commission or their roster positions. If two or more appointees obtain identical marks, the older or oldest in age, as the case may be, will occupy the higher or highest position between such candidates in the seniority list.(ii) The above direction will apply only to appointees recruited to the post of Civil Judge (Junior Division) 2009 onwards.(iii) When a common recruitment process is undertaken, all new recruits must be deemed to have been appointed on the same date and their order of seniority will be in accordance with the marks obtained in the recruitment examination, irrespective of the date of joining and regardless of the positions they occupied as per the roster.(iv) The promotions obtained till today by candidates who have been recruited as Civil Judge (Junior Division) in or after the year 2009 will remain unaffected by this order, in the sense that no one already promoted should be demoted to a lower post.(v) Even if the revision results in a higher ranked officer remaining in a lower post than a lower ranked officer, promotion will be on the basis of the prospective vacancy in the promotional post.(vi) For Civil Judges (Senior Division) who may be eligible to take the limited competitive examination in future, all judges ranked higher than the last-placed Civil Judge (Senior Division) who is entitled to take the examination on the basis of the time spent in the post, will be eligible irrespective of not having spent the requisite time in the post.(vii) As far as the 2020 recruitment process is concerned, since the appointments have not yet been made, the seniority list must be prepared in terms of this order and on the basis of the descending order of marks obtained by the appointees at the recruitment examination. To clarify for all purposes, the person with the highest marks must be placed first in the seniority list and so on till the person with the lowest marks in the last position, irrespective of what slots they may have occupied as per the roster.(viii) Any fixation or re-fixation of seniority made in accordance with law for judges recruited prior to 2009 will remain unaffected by this order..The order was passed in a batch of petitions filed in 2015 wherein a seniority list prepared on the basis of recruitment to the post of Civil Judge (Junior Division) was challenged as completely flawed. The petitions were filed by judicial officers who were recruited in 2009..Earlier, the Court had constituted a committee to examine whether the Civil Judge recruitment in 2003, 2009, and 2012, and seniority lists prepared on that basis, adhered to the 200-point roster-based, reservation system applicable in Tamil Nadu for filling such vacancies..Explaining how a roster system would work, the Court said,"The idea of the roster system is to ensure that the exact percentage of reservation is worked out at the end of 100 points or 200 points or 40 points, whatever number of points may be prescribed by the roster. The roster is repeatedly applied, such that in the 200-point case the 201st position is the same as the first, the 250th position is the same as the 50th and the 400th position goes to a candidate belonging to the same category as the 200th.".The Court proceeded to take note that the Supreme Court, in the case of Bimlesh Tanwar vs. State of Haryana, and the Madras High Court, case of N Santosh Kumar vs. The Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission, have held that the "roster system is only for the purpose of ensuring that the quantum of reservation is reflected in the recruitment process; it has nothing to do with the inter se seniority, among those recruited.".The Court added that in Bimlesh Tanwar, the Supreme Court had overruled the law previously declared in S Ghalaut vs. State of Haryana. .Explaining how that the later Supreme Court judgment would have to be followed in this case by the Madras High Court, the Bench also commented, "In other words, to put it bluntly, if a pink ping-pong ball referred to in the previous judgment is subsequently interpreted to have been a red ping-pong ball, it is such dictum which becomes binding and the High Court cannot refer to the original pink ping-pong ball.".The Court proceeded to summarise its ruling in the following manner:"Thus, the seniority of the persons inducted to the post of Civil Judge (Junior Division) from 2009 onwards has to be determined in accordance with the marks obtained by the successful candidates in the recruitment examination such that the appointee with the highest marks will be placed in the first position and the appointee with the lowest marks among the successful candidates will be placed in the last position in the list prepared according to seniority, irrespective of, and completely without reference to, the positions such appointees may have occupied on the 200-point roster.".In another interesting feature, the High Court also had occasion to briefly acknowledge the uncharitable phraseology adopted when referring to the district judiciary in India. ."In the pyramidal hierarchy that exists in the Indian judiciary, there is the district judiciary - uncharitably, at times, referred to as the subordinate judiciary - which is made up of three tiers, then there are the High Courts which exercise superintendence over the district judiciary and finally there is the Supreme Court which exercises the authority to declare the law of the land under Article 141 of the Constitution," the Court observed..Senior advocate V Prakash and advocate R Harishankar appeared for the petitioners. Advocate N Subramaniyan appeared for an impleaded petitioner. Advocate V Vijay Shankar appeared for the High Court's Registrar General. Advocate General R Shunmugasundaram assisted by advocate Shabnam Banu appeared for the State. Standing counsel CNG Niraimathi appeared for the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission..Advocates Habeeb Rahman, MR Sivakumar, J Stalin, SL Sudarsanam, R Murali, S Srinivasaraghavan, A Tamilvanan, K Thilageswaran, BA Prakash, Thomas Acquinas, CR Malarvannan, AV Arun, V Vijaya Baskar, M Sasikumar, A Prabhakaran, M Malar, S Thankasivan and M/S Norton & Grant appeared for various other respondents..[Read Judgment]