The prayer in the writ petition is for a writ of mandamus directing the respondents to include the names of the petitioners for the purpose of interview along with the candidates already sent from the Employment Exchange to fill up the post of Fishery Assistants as per the provisions contained in Rule 5 of the Adhoc Service Rules framed in G.O.Ms.No.764 Forest and Fisheries Department dated 16.08.1976 within a stipulated time to be fixed by this Court.
2.The petitioners' case is that they are fishermen. Traditionally, they got experience in fishing, swimming, boat rowing, fishing net fabrication and mending net etc. These petitioners have already registered their names in the Dindigul Employment Exchange in the special category of Fisheries Technology. The State Government in exercise of the powers conferred under proviso to
Article 309 of the Constitution have framed adhoc rules for the post of fishermen in the Fisheries Department in G.O.Ms.No.764 dated 16.08.1976 of Forest and Fisheries Department. The appointing authority for the post of Fishermen, shall be the Assistant Director of Fisheries/Deputy Director/Joint Director of Fisheries concerned. According to the said Adhoc Rules, no person shall be eligible for the appointment to the post of fishermen, unless they possess the qualification such as, he must be able to read and write Tamil and he must know swimming, fishing, fabrication and mending net, preference shall be given to those, who possess certificate training in any one of the training centres of fisheries department.
3. While so, the respondent Department has issued a notification dated 29.08.2012 proposing to select and appoint to the post of Fishery Assistant. Pursuant to the said notification, names were called for from the District Employment Exchange as per the communal rotation also. In response to the same, the District Employment Exchange, Dindigul, ie., the 4th respondent herein seems to have forwarded certain names other than the petitioners and pursuant to the said sponsoring of the names, the respondent Department fixed 05.10.2012 as an interview date for which, the petitioners were not permitted to attend. According to the petitioners, none of the candidates sponsored by the 4th respondent Employment Exchange would meet the qualification prescribed under the special adhoc rules, as those candidates were sponsored by the 4th respondent, as general candidates with regular qualifications of Degree and other qualifications and therefore, if the interview pursuant to the said Notification is conducted and selection process go on, certainly, no suitable candidates with the proper qualifications, as has been mentioned above through the special rule, would be either available or if those general category candidates are considered for the appointment to the said post, certainly, it will be an injustice to the very department itself, as most of the candidates sponsored by the 4th respondent would be no useful for the Department. Therefore, the petitioners have come out with this writ petition for a mandamus to accept the candidature of the petitioners also along with others sponsored by the 4th respondent for the said recruitment.
4. Heard the learned counsel for the petitioner and the learned Additional Government Pleader for the respondents.
5. The learned counsel for the petitioners would submit that the petitioners are fisherman and from their childhood, they have been trained in fishing activities and after having rich experience in fishing activities, they had been working with the respondent Fisheries Department as share fishermen. The nature of the job of share fishermen is that they have to fish and the fished out activities would be shared between the share fishermen and the Department. In this regard, a certificate to that effect also has been issued by the Assistant Director of Fisheries, (Inland Fisheries), Dindigul, who is the third respondent herein. In the said Certificate, it is mentioned that the petitioners are share fishermen and they are also members of the Taluk Level Fishermen Cooperative Societies and presently, they are engaging in share fishing at the reservoir concerned under the control of the office of the Inspector of Fisheries. When that being so, these petitioners are actually potential people to be considered for the said post of Fishery Assistant and instead of considering the petitioners, because the respondents have sought for names from the 4th respondent Employment Exchange, the 4th respondent, in turn, seems to have sponsored only general candidates, who were not trained either by the fisheries department nor on their own, with the result, none of these candidates sponsored by the Employment Exchange would meet the requirement as provided under the Special Adhoc Rules for the post of Fishery Assistant. Only in that juncture, since the candidature of the petitioners have not been sponsored by the 4th respondent, resultanly, the petitioners candidature were not considered for the proposed recruitment to the post of Fishery Assistant, these petitioners had come to this Court in the year 2012 and seek for a prayer of mandamus to include them also in the list of consideration.
6. On the other hand, the learned Additional Government Pleader would submit that no doubt, Special Rules were framed under the G.O. referred to above, wherein, the qualification has been prescribed for the post of Fishery Assistant. In this regard, the learned Additional Government Pleader would invite the attention of this Court to the counter filed by the third respondent, which reads thus:
?It is submitted that, in G.O.Ms.No.764, Forest and Fisheries Department, dated 16.08.1976, the Government prescribed adhoc rules for the post of Fisherman (Now redesignated as Fishery Assistant). Later, in G.O.Ms.No.551, Forest and Fisheries Department, dated 23.05.1986, the Government prescribed the special rules for the post of Fishermen as follows:
Fisherman by direct recruitment or recruitment by transfer from Tamilnadu Basic Service.
(35) (i) must be able to read, write and speak in Tamil and
(ii) must know swimming, fishing, fabrication and mending of nets.
Provided that preference shall be given to those who possess certificate for having undergone training in any of the Fisheries Training Centre of the Fisheries Department.
Therefore, to fill up the post of Fishery Assistants, the Employment Exchange had been addressed to furnish the list with the above said qualifications. For more than a decade, Fisheries Training Centres are not conducting any certificate course and hence the candidates with preferential treatment may not be available from the Dindigul or Employment Exchange. Therefore, the Employment Exchange has sent a list of 45 candidates from the General list.?
7. The learned Additional Government Pleader would further submit that since for a decade, the Fisheries Training Centres had not conducted any certificate course and therefore, no certificate holders to that effect would be available in the Employment Exchange, especially, at the 4th respondent and therefore, on request made by the Department of Fisheries for the said recruitment, the 4th respondent has sponsored 45 candidates from the general list. Those 45 candidates were possessing general educational qualifications. Even though the list of general candidates were sponsored by the 4th respondent, their skill in swimming, fishing operations, fabrication and mending of fishing nets would be tested by the department people at the time of oral interview to be conducted and only for the said purpose, the oral interview was fixed on 05.10.2012, only at that stage, since the petitioners have approached this Court by way of this present writ petition, this Court by order dated 27.09.2012, stayed the further action pursuant to the notification dated 29.08.2012. In view of the said stay granted by this Court, the interview proposed to be conducted on 05.10.2012 was cancelled and the very recruitment itself has not been undertaken and it has been kept pending all along.
8. This Court has considered the said rival submissions made by the learned counsel for the parties.
9. As per the adhoc rules pursuant to the G.O.Ms.No.764 dated 16.08.1976, the qualifications prescribed for the post of Fishery Assistant is that the person must be able to read and write Tamil and also he must know fishing, swimming and fabrication and mending of fishing net. All these petitioners have claimed that they are born fishermen and they have been trained as fishermen all along and in this regard, they relied upon the Certificate issued by the Department of Fisheries signed by the Assistant Director of fisheries, (In Land Fisheries), Dindigul, the third respondent herein, for all these petitioners.
10. The contents of one such certificate is reproduced hereunder: ?Department of Fisheries Certificate This is to certify that Thiru.K.Sivachandran, S/o.Thiru.T.Kalimuthu of Sorakkaipatty is a share fisherman in Parappalaru Dam and Sadaiyankulam. He is also a member of Oddanchatram Taluk Fisherman Cooperative Society (Member No.67). Presently he is being engaged in share fishing at Parappalaru Reservoir and Sadaiyankulam under the control of office of the Inspector of Fisheries. He may be register as a fisherman.?
11. All the petitioners are holding the Certificates as referred to above issued by the third respondent and they are presently working as share fishermen at various places under the supervision of the very Fisheries Department itself. When a particular post in Technical nature is to be filled up and for which, there are Adhoc Rules, wherein qualifications have been prescribed, certainly, the appointing authority must go for the open market, specifically prescribing, the said qualifications made under the Rules and required candidates, who satisfy the said qualifications to apply for the said post. In this case, the Fisheries Department has merely approached the 4th respondent Employment Exchange to sponsor the names to fill up the post of Fishery Assistants. It is a common knowledge that whenever names are called from the Employment Exchange, where basic educational qualification is given as, only to read and write Tamil, certainly, those who are waiting in the Employment Exchange with the minimum educational qualifications would be sponsored by the Employment Exchange. This is what happened in this case also, where 45 names have been sponsored by the 4th respondent, most of them have the educational qualifications, but it is highly doubtful that any of those candidates sponsored by the Employment Exchange would meet the requirement of qualification ie. Fishing, mending of net etc., as required under the Rules for the post of Fishery Assistant.
12. Only on this prima facie issue, which was to the satisfaction of this Court, this Court, by interim order dated 27.09.2012, stayed the further progress pursuant to the notification dated 29.08.2012. Pursuant to the stay granted by this Court, the very interview proposed was cancelled and in fact, the recruitment process has not been completed, pursuant to the notification dated 29.08.2012. Since these petitioners are having the adequate qualifications, especially, the special qualifications, which are meant for the said post of Fishery Assistant, omitting the candidates, like the petitioners, is a loss to the Fisheries Department, as for the Fisheries Department it may not be possible to locate a suitable candidate for the said post of Fishery Assistant. Therefore, this Court is of the considered view that the respondent Fisheries Department cannot merely seek the candidates from the District Employment Exchange alone to fill up the post of Fishery Assistant. But the proper method would be to give an advertisement in Newspapers inviting candidates from the open market by prescribing the exact qualifications as provided in the Special Adhoc Rules and after getting applications from persons, who satisfy the qualifications, then the process of shortlisting the candidates can also be undertaken, if number of applications are more than the optimum number required to fill up the post of Fishery Assistant depending upon the vacancies available for the Department.
13. In view of the said facts and circumstances, the following orders are passed:
Since the notification dated 29.08.2012 has not been given effect to, in view of the stay granted by this Court, as early as on 27.09.2012, and the proposed interview scheduled to be conducted on 05.10.2012 was cancelled, the respondent Fisheries Department are directed not to proceed with the said recruitment process, pursuant to the notification dated 29.08.2012;
(ii) The respondent Fisheries Department is directed to go for a fresh notification to be published in two vernacular News Dailies having wide circulation atleast in five regions in the State of Tamil Nadu covering the entire state, wherein, the exact qualifications prescribed for the post of Fishery Assistant to be given and applications can be invited from the eligible candidates within a particular date;
(iii) On receipt of applications from the eligible candidates, it is open to the respondent Department to shortlist those applications as per the method to be adopted by the Department itself and thereafter, personal interview shall be fixed and shortlisted candidates can be permitted to attend the interview and based on their performance, final selection can be made.
With these directions, the writ petition is disposed of. No costs.
To
1.The District Collector, Dindigul District, Dindigul
2.The Deputy Director of Fisheries, (Regional) Madurai.
3.The Assistant Director of Fisheries (Inland Fisheries) Dindigul
4.The District Employment Officer, Dindigul District, Dindigul. .