CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has held that Judges’ seniority cannot be fixed based on the roster system followed by the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission, which applies the rule of reservation while recruiting. Instead, seniority, the court has ruled, must be based on marks each of them obtain in the competitive examination.

The issue pertains to a batch of pleas moved by a section of Judges seeking revision of seniority of all civil judges, who were recruited in the State since 2009. The bench disposed of the pleas by issuing a common order for seniority at the entry level in the district judiciary.

“The principle behind the rule is to recognise the merit of the candidate and to treat a Meritorious Reserved Category candidate, as a general category candidate and leave the slot that he would otherwise have occupied in his reserved category to another socially backward candidate of same class. The very ethos of social justice founded on the principle of equal availability of opportunities justifies the rule that an MRC has to jump from his category to the general category,” ordered the bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy.

“The appointee with the highest marks will be placed in first position and the appointee with the lowest marks among the successful candidates will be placed last in the list prepared according to seniority, irrespective of, and completely without reference to, the positions such appointees may have occupied on the 200-point roster,” court said. The bench observed, “As to the judges recruited to relevant posts prior to 2009, there is no challenge. The matters prior to 2009 recruitment need not be considered and it may only be observed that the positions as to promotion made in respect of such judges may not be disturbed as a consequence of the present judgment.”

“Dates of appointment are of crucial importance when preparing seniority list, but when a common recruitment process is undertaken, all new recruits must be deemed to have been appointed on same date and their order of seniority will be in accordance with the marks obtained in the recruitment exam, irrespective of the date of joining and regardless of the positions they occupied as per the roster,” the