Madurai:
Madras High Court on Monday directed Tamil nadu government to consider the plea of a Village Adminstrative Officer to fix 'inter-seniority' for them, along with equivalent cadres like Junior Assitant,Typist and stenographer.
Justice D Hariparanthaman gave the direction while hearing the plea of the petition by a batch of Six VAOs, including one Satheesh Kumar.
The Petitioners submitted that there are 12,614 VAOs, 3,169 Revenue Junior Assistants, 1,214 Typists and 130 Stenographers.
Government recruited revenue assitants by filling one third of vacancies by direct recruitment and two third through promotions to VAOS, RJA, typrit and stenotypists, they said.
Seventy per cent of the promotions,3224 posts of revenue assistants were given to RJA, typist and Stenotypists, who totally accounted for 4513. But VAOs, whose total strength was 12,614, got only 1,382 posts(30 per cent).
Being a fundemental administrative structure, they could not be neglected, they submitted.
Another 'discriminating' factor against VAOs in promotion was that they are eligible for it only after six years of service, that too for 30 per cent of vacancies alone.
RJA,typist and stenotypist were eligible for promotion to the post of assistant on completing two years service.
They had passed all department tests and were better qualified for promotion.
They had sent a representation to the Principal revenue secretary and commissioner for revenue administration to remove the discrimination, but no action had been taken so far, they said.