Madras HC Orders Junior Assistant Absorption Test For Long-Serving Rural-Scheme Computer Assistants, Citing Sanctioned Posts And VB-G RAM G Act

The petitioners were appointed as Computer Assistants under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) between 2006 and 2013.

The Court recorded that they were selected through the Employment Exchange, following prescribed procedures and communal rotation, and that the posts had been sanctioned on consolidated pay, initially for the duration of the scheme or until the posts were no longer necessary.

By G.O. (Ms.) No. 37 dated 22 March 2017, the State decided to absorb qualifying Computer Assistants through a special qualifying test.

In G.O. (Ms.) No. 92 and consequential Letter (Ms.) No. 94, both dated 13 July 2023, the State withdrew that decision, relying on Umadevi and Daya Lal.

The petitioners sought to quash those instruments and obtain absorption as Junior Assistants through the special qualifying test.

Under State of Karnataka v. Umadevi (2006) 4 SCC 1 and State of Rajasthan v. Daya Lal (2011) 2 SCC 429, long service alone does not confer a right to regularisation, particularly where engagement is against an unsanctioned post or is otherwise impermissible; the Court distinguished those principles where, as it found here, the petitioners occupied sanctioned posts and had been recruited through prescribed procedures.

Nihal Singh v. State of Punjab (2013) 14 SCC 65 establishes that a court cannot compel the State to create or sanction posts, but the Court considered that principle inapplicable because the posts in question had already been sanctioned.

The Court relied on the equality guarantee under Article 14 as protection against arbitrary State action, and on Sukhendu Bhattacharjee v. State of Assam, 2026 SCC OnLine SC 909, and Jaggo v. Union of India, 2024 SCC OnLine SC 3826, for the principles that the State must act fairly as a model employer and that Umadevi is not a blanket bar to fair treatment of long-serving employees performing essential and recurring functions.

The Court also treated Parliament’s enactment of Act 36 of 2025, renaming the scheme as VB-G RAM G, as making the scheme and the associated work continuing in nature.

The Court found that the petitioners were not backdoor entrants: the State did not seriously dispute that they had been selected through the Employment Exchange, in accordance with communal rotation and due procedure.

It also relied on G.O. (Ms.) No. 37 and the earlier sanctioning orders to conclude that the posts were sanctioned, distinguishing the case from Umadevi, Daya Lal and Nihal Singh.

It considered the work’s continuing necessity in light of the scheme’s statutory continuation, and viewed the State’s reversal of its 2017 position, despite TNPSC’s earlier concurrence to a special test, as arbitrary.

The Court further accepted the petitioners’ comparison with scheme Overseers absorbed under G.O. (Ms.) No. 96 of 2008 as supporting their claim of discriminatory treatment.

Applying the principles in Sukhendu Bhattacharjee and Jaggo, it held that the State could not rely on the contractual form of engagement to justify withdrawing the proposed absorption of employees who had served for many years in sanctioned posts.

It directed the respondents to absorb the petitioners as Junior Assistants by conducting the special qualifying test contemplated by G.O. (Ms.) No. 37 dated 22 March 2017, within twelve weeks of receipt of the order; no costs were awarded.