HC quashes seniority list of technical wing of TN police dept

The Madras High Court has quashed a 2007 seniority list of personnel working in the technical wing of Tamil Nadu police department and directed it to prepare it afresh based on their technical expertise.
Justice V Parthiban gave the direction recently on a petition by P K Murugan, a sub-inspector (technical), attached to police telecommunication branch, Virudhunagar, seeking to quash the seniority list prepared by the department on February 13, 2007.
The petitioner also sought a direction to the police department to re-fix the seniority based on the marks obtained in technical training.
The matter relates to the practice of preparing the seniority list of police personnel in the department's technical wing based on the marks obtained in general training provided in the police training college, without giving due weightage to marks secured in a special technical training.

Allowing the petition, the judge said the state police department should stop "mindless application" of service rules while preparing the seniority list of technical persons.
Quashing the list, the judge said, "The rules are very clear that due emphasis should be placed on the technical knowledge of the personnel to be recruited as sub inspectors (technical)".

"Elaborate training has also been provided on the technical side for the purpose of handling their job, as compared to the general learning provided for police personnel attached to other branches of the department," he said.
Such being the case, it is rather preposterous that the administration has given undue weightage only to the proficiency of such technical personnel in general training, completely wishing away their proficiency in the technical training, the judge added.

The court noted that undue emphasis had been given to the expression 'Police Training College' and that was being considered as final examination which alone remained as the sole yardstick for grant of inter se seniority among the technical recruits.