Notice on PIL to fill up judicial vacancies

CHENNAI: The first bench of the Madras High Court has ordered issuance of notice to the government and the TN Public Service Commission (TNPSC) on a writ petition praying for a direction to them to fill up the vacancies of presiding officers in all the labour courts and to the district munsif courts in the State.The bench compirsing Chief Justice MY Eqbal and Justice TS Sivagnanam directed the registry to put up the matter on January 9 along with a similar writ petition pending before it. In his public interest writ petition, KM Ramesh, secretary of Labour Law Practitioners’ Association, submitted that the posts of presiding officers for the principal labour court and two additional labour courts were remaining vacant for several months, resulting in accumulation of arrears running to 12,000 cases. The same was the case in the districts also.In the case of district munsif,the High Court had cleared the ground for TN Public Service Commission  to proceed with the recruitment. But, TN Public Service Commission  had not taken any steps to issue recruitment notification, so far, he said, and added that the non-filling of vacancies amounted to violation of the provisions of the Industrial Disputes (Service Rules) Act.