HC dismisses plea on staying nurses recruitment notification

The Madras High Court today dismissed a petition which sought a direction to stay a Medical Services Recruitment Board notification with regard to recruitment of nurses on contract basis.
The petition was filed by the Association of Government Trained and Trainee Nurses and two trained nurses who sought a direction to quash the April 19 notification calling for applications to fill 7243 posts of nurses on various grounds.
In his order, Justice D. Hariparanthaman said "taking into account the Constitutional provision under Article 15 (3) and Rule 21 of Tamil Nadu State and Subordinate Service Rules and also the fact that the central government schemes, under which the nurses are appointed, provide for appointment of women nurses, I do not find any reason to interfere in the reservation of 6792 posts for women."

The Association had challenged, among other clauses, one which provides reservation of 6792 posts exclusively for women candidates as "such a reservation is not provided in the Tamil Nadu Medical Subordinate Service Rules.
"Hence, such reservation is bad and illegal and also violative of Article 14 of the Constitution," it said.
Concurring with the submissions made by Advocate General A.L. Somayaji and rejecting the contentions of counsel for the Association, the judge said "..Recruitment is only for those central government schemes. It is not contractual appointment. As rightly contended by the Advocate General, the recruited candidates would continue in service so long as the schemes continue to exist."

"..Taking into account the entirety of the circumstances, I am in agreement with the submissions of the learned Advocate General and I do not find any infirmity in permitting the candidates above 32 years of age to participate in the selection process," the judge said.

On the pay scale fixation, the judge concurred with the submissions made by counsel for the Association that the nurses appointed cannot be paid a meagre sum of Rs.7,700.
" .. Even if appointments are made to schemes, they cannot be appointed for a meagre sum of Rs.7,700 on consolidated pay basis. The nursing students undergo three and half years course and they belong to skilled category."

Concurring with the submissions of the counsel that doctors who are appointed under such schemes are provided with the scale of pay from the date of appointment, the judge said as it will be discussed when the main petitions are taken up for hearing, "I am not inclined to stay the impugned notification on that score.