SAT partially rejects engineers’ appointments

Cuttack: The State Administrative Tribunal (SAT) on Tuesday partially rejected the appointments of assistant executive engineers and ordered publication of a fresh merit list of candidates who had applied as per the initial notification and have gone through the required recruitment process.

The tribunal also asked the Odisha Public Service Commission (OPSC) to limit the reservation at 50% and make pro rata marking for faulty questions.

Notably, in April last year, OPSC had published a notification to fill 657 vacant assistant executive engineer posts in Water Resources, Public Works and Housing & Urban Development departments. In the notification, the maximum age limit for AC/BC category was relaxed by 5 years.

However, after the last date of the application, another revised notification was published by OPSC, in which the age limit for in-service diploma engineers was increased from 32 to 45. Protesting this change, two cases were filed with SAT.

“SAT has quashed both the first and the second corrigendum. Moreover, it has ordered to cast the re-merit list asking that ceiling limit of reservation should not exceed 50%. However, SAT has not clarified the manner in which this ceiling limit should be maintained,” said petitioners' counsel Subrat Kumar Nayak.