Orissa High Court refuses to interfere in petitions seeking reservation in medical super specialty posts

Orissa High Court has refused to interfere in the recruitment process of the Odisha Government, which did not earmark reservations for scheduled caste and scheduled tribe candidates for the selection of assistant professor in the super-speciality stream.

Adjudicating petitions filed by two candidates belonging to reserved categories, Orissa High Court Judge Biraja Prasanna Satpathy said the court found no illegality in the advertisement issued by State government.

Odisha Public Service Commission had come out with an advertisement in 2021 for recruitment of post of assistant professor (Super Speciality). The advertisement was challenged by two candidates on ground that no reservation was mentioned in it.

“No reservation was provided for any of the candidates belonging to reserve category and all the 19 posts so advertised were meant for unreserved candidates, the process of selection so undertaken by the Commission is vitiated,” the petitioners argued.

“Since in terms of the decision in the case of Indra Sawhney so followed in Preeti Srivastav and Faculty Association of AIIMS as cited (supra), no step has been taken by the State as to whether reservation can be followed against recruitment to the post of assistant professor in Super Speciality, it is the view of this court that no illegality or irregularity has been committed by the opposition parties (government and OPSC) while issuing the impugned advertisement,” observed Justice Satpathy.

“Accordingly, this court is not inclined to interfere with the recruitment process so undertaken by the Commission pursuant to the advertisement. Consequentially, both the writ petitions fail and is dismissed accordingly,” he ruled.

During the hearing, the government side argued that reservation was not applicable to post of assistant professor in super specialty as it is not base level post. Government counsel contended that as per the Medical Council of India norm, assistant professor in Super Speciality comes under Level 12 and assistant professor in broad speciality comes under Level 11.

“Since in the impugned advertisement the post carries the scale of pay of Level 12, the post (assistant professor) cannot be treated as the base level post or in the lowest of the rank against teaching post,” counsels argued.