Cuttack, Feb. 10: The Odisha Administrative Tribunal (OAT) has issued a contempt notice to the Odisha Public Service Commission (OPSC) for ignoring its stay order and declaring the final list of eligible assistant executive engineers.
The OAT's Cuttack bench has issued the notice to the OPSC secretary for deliberately and wilfully disobeying its order.
On April 17 last, the OPSC had issued an advertisement inviting applications for 675 posts of assistant executive engineers with 32 years as the upper age limit. But on May 29, the commission issued a corrigendum relaxing the upper age limit to 45 years for diploma engineer service candidates and extended the last date for submitting online applications from May 27 to June 15, 2015.
Rajeswar Bisoyi, 23, and 15 other civil engineering graduates, who were applicants for the posts, had challenged the corrigendum in the tribunal and filed a petition on grounds of illegality. They alleged that the age relaxation made applicable "retrospectively" was "highly prejudiced".
On October 5 last year, the tribunal admitted the petition and issued an order that said: "As an interim measure, let the process of recruitment continue, but no final result shall be published without leave of the tribunal." As part of the recruitment process, the OPSC conducted a written examination on August 30. Subsequently, as many as 1,416 candidates were declared qualified on December 1 for the viva voce from December 15.
Last week, the petitioners filed a contempt petition before the tribunal alleging that the OPSC declared the final result on January 1, 2016 in "blatant violation" of its interim order. The matter came up for hearing on Monday.
"Taking note of it, the tribunal bench of acting chairman B.K. Dash and administrative member M.M. Praharaj issued notice to the OPSC secretary to explain why contempt proceedings should not be initiated against him," petitioner counsel Bibhu Prasad Tripathy said.
"While issuing the show cause notice, the tribunal bench said it was prima facie of the view that the OPSC secretary had committed contempt of court and posted the matter for hearing on February 17," Tripathy said.
The legal dispute has centred on the contention that the age relaxation was "illegal" as it was done by retrospectively applying the Odisha Engineering Service (Method of Recruitment & Conditions of Service) Amendment Rules, 2015, which was notified on May 19, 2015. The advertisement inviting applications for the posts was issued earlier on April 17, 2015.
The OPSC in its January 1, 2016 notification has recommended 675 candidates for the post of assistant executive engineer - 651 (civil) and 24 (mechanical).