Open up Recruitment for all; don’t Restrict it to Golaghat Employment Exchange: HC to NRL

Staff Reporter

Guwahati: The Gauhati High Court disposed of a writ petition questioning the policy of Numaligarh Refinery Limited (NRL), whereby the recruitment is done only through the Employment Exchange of Golaghat, with a direction to the NRL to open up the recruitment to all eligible candidates and not restrict it to Employment Exchange-sponsored candidates only.

It is a matter of record that the Supreme Court had earlier pronounced that a 100% reservation for candidates sponsored by the Employment Exchange would not muster the test of constitutionality.

The order and observation were made by the division bench of Chief Justice Ashutosh Kumar and Justice Arun Dev Choudhury while disposing of a petition in a case (WP(C)/1417/2023) filed by 15 petitioners from across the state. The petition questioned the policy of the NRL, whereby the recruitment in its service is only through the Employment Exchange of Golaghat. The petitioners have challenged both the recruitment rules followed by NRL and the process initiated by it, as those are unconstitutional and violate fundamental rights under Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution, guaranteeing equality before law and equal opportunity in public employment.

The grievance of the writ petitioners is that since 2004, the NRL has been restricting job advertisements for lower-grade posts, i.e., grades IV and V, only to the candidates sponsored by the District Employment Exchange, Golaghat, thereby excluding the eligible job seekers from other parts of Assam. Until 2003, the recruitment in NRL was conducted through open advertisements, accessible to all eligible candidates across the state.

The only justification forwarded by the NRL is that it has its own recruitment rules for employees other than the officers. Rule 7 of those sets of rules permits the NRL to limit the recruitment to candidates sponsored by Golaghat Employment Exchange. The further justification for such a restrictive recruitment policy is the peculiarity of the location and the situs of NRL.

It was also considered by the NRL that it was established as a result of the Assam Accord, which had emphasized on promotion of local employment alongside industrial development. Reservation for local candidates was thus for the purpose of improving the poverty level of the local population for whom there would be little employment opportunities, as it falls in a "No Development Zone".

During the course of the argument, M. Bhagabati, the advocate for the petitioners, informed the Court that now the reservation has been reduced to 30%.

The court held that this also would not serve any purpose. "We say so for the reason that if the recruitment process is open to all eligible candidates, it shall cater to the needs of the local population as well. It cannot be said with certainty that all persons of Golaghat or neighbouring areas would have registered themselves with the Employment Exchange, in which case they would not have an opportunity of applying for their recruitment in the NRL. Even otherwise, the Recruitment Rules of NRL do not appear to have any statutory value for the reason that they do not indicate any cut-off date or any concrete policy decision."

Considering the circumstances, the court offered the considered opinion that any decision of the NRL to restrict the recruitment to Employment Exchange-sponsored candidates, even to the extent of 30% of the vacancy, would be bad in law and would be unsustainable.

The court, therefore, disposed of the writ petition with the direction to the NRL to open up the recruitment whenever it is made to all the eligible candidates and not restrict it to candidates sponsored by the Employment Exchange only.

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