HC orders status quo till Tuesday

KOCHI: The Kerala High Court has ordered that status quo be maintained till Tuesday in a grievance relating to appointments to the post of Assistant Grade-II at the Kerala University. The order will be applicable to the 31 candidates who had moved the court challenging an Upa Lok Ayukta order. Justice T R Ramachandran Nair passed the order while considering a batch of petitions filed by the Assistant Grade staff seeking the issuance of a directive to the Kerala University to stop it from taking actions pursuant to the Lok Ayukta’s recommendation. The Lok Ayukta had recommended the University to cancel all appointments to the post of Assistant Grade II, made from a rank-list after conducting a written test in 2005 and a subsequent interview in 2007. The Lok Ayukta had also suggested to conduct a fresh selection. The university had short-listed 2,114 candidates and initially appointed 160 of them to the post. The petitioners submitted that the report and the findings are vitiated and has not considered relevant facts. The Upa Lokayukta  had asked the officials of the Kerala University to produce the answer sheets of the entrance examination, but that has not been done so far. “The candidates cannot be put to suffer due to serious prejudice on account of technical lapses on the part of the university. Regarding non-production of the evaluated answer scripts are concerned, lapse on the part of the university was serious. But that may not be taken as a ground to cancel the appointment,” the petitioners argued.  The petitioners also requested to quash the findings of the Lok Ayukta and added that this will affect the candidates who managed to get this job purely on merit.