Not justified to issue direction to de-reserve vacant doctors' posts: Odisha HC

Cuttack: The Orissa High Court has acknowledged that the Orissa Reservation of Vacancies in Posts and Services (for Scheduled Castes & Scheduled Tribes) Act, 1975 do mention about de-reserving posts for general category candidates that remain vacant in the SC & ST category even after several years of recruitment.

A single judge bench of Justice BR Sarangi noted,

"In view of such position, this Court is of the considered view that it is not justified to issue a direction to the appropriate government to de-reserve the posts."

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The observation was made by the court on Wednesday while disposing a petition which was filed by 173 non-reserved candidates seeking direction from the state government to de-reserve 1,505 posts of medical officers that remain vacant in the SC and ST category, reports The New Indian Express.

An advertisement was issued for taking recruitments to the post of medical officers (assistant surgeon) in Group-A (Junior Branch) of the Odisha Medical & Health Services Cadre under Health & Family Welfare Department in 2021-22. Out of the total 1,871 posts which were advertised, 576 were for SC category and 985 for ST category.

The petitioners started that the posts which are meant for reserved category have not been filled up since 2015-2016. And every year the vacancies available for SC & ST category gets carried forward to the next recruitment calendar and seven such hiring processes have already been conducted, however the posts are yet to be filled.

The Advocate Avijit Mishra cited sections 6 and 7 of the Orissa Reservation of Vacancies in Posts and Services (for Scheduled Castes & Scheduled Tribes) Act, 1975 for arguing the case for the petitioners.

Justice Sarangi took note of them and said that in the aforementioned provisions, it is clear that if in any recruitment year, the number of candidates either from SC or ST categories is less than the number of vacancies reserved for them even after exchange of reservation between the categories.

Therefore, the remaining vacancies may be filled up by general candidates after de-reserving the vacancies in the required manner after taking forward the vacancies for three years of recruitment.

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