HC suspends absorption order
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, January 23 2023: The High Court of Manipur has suspended an order issued by the Additional Secretary, Education (S) on December 19, 2022 whereby 13 Programme Officers (RTE) and 12 Assistant Programme Officers (RTE) were absorbed in Marfipur Education service Grade-II and Manipur Education Service Grade-Ill respectively.

After hearing a petition filed by the Manipur Government Services Federation against the particular order issued by the Additional Secretary, Education (S), Justice Ahanthem Bimol Singh passed a judgment today.

The counsel appearing for the petitioners submitted that there is no provision under the MES Rules, 2012 for recruitment by way of absorption and that the private respondents (the 25 employees who have been absorbed against MES Grade-II and Grade-Ill) did not possess the eligibility criteria with regard to the educational qualification and qualifying service as provided under the MES Rules, 2012 .

As per the State Cabinet decision, their absorption was to be carried out as a one time relaxation of the rules.

However the absorption of the private respondents have been carried out in a most arbitrary and illegal manner without amending the service rules.

The counsel submitted that the absorption of the private respondents in the cadre strength of MES Grade-II as much as, such absorption is to be carried out as a one time measure after relaxing the relevant provisions of the service rules.

In the present case, the State Government has riot relaxed or amended any of the service rules for absorbing the private respondents in the cadre of MES Grade-II and Grade-Ill, the Court noted.

The Court subsequently passed an order which suspended the impugned order issued by the Additional Secretary, Education (S) on December 19, 2022 till the next date.

The Court listed the case for next hearing on February 22 and directed the respondents to file their counter affidavit.

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