Name in merit list does not give appointment rights: CAT

NEW DELHI: The Central Administrative Tribunal has rejected the plea of two candidates challenging the Delhi Government's decision not to appoint them as staff members despite their names appearing in the merit list.
    
A government had withheld their appointments for the post of nursing orderlies in the year 2000 maintaining that it didnot have the vacancies.
    
A CAT Bench agreed with the Delhi government that mere appearance of name in the (selection) panel does not confer any right of appointment on the applicants and, therefore, there were no sustainable claims in respect of them.
    
The Bench headed by Vice-Chairman Justice M Ramachandran said, "We hold that the applicants (petitioners) cannot put up sustainable claims pressing for appointments on the basis of their selection in the year 2000, and application is dismissed."
    
It concurred with the government counsel that the merit list didn't survive beyond the formation of second merit list and fresh selections made the next year.
    
The petitioners Jitender and Daya Ram had alleged that they had applied for the post of nursing orderly in response to a notification in 1999. The interviews for the post had been held in the January 2000.
    
They were included in the merit list and their names featured in the selection panel.
    
However, they found that only 15 candidates from the merit list were conferred with appointments. They alleged that they could not have been sidelined like this for any valid reasons.
    
The Government contended that 15 candidates were taken because only 15 vacancies of nursing orderlies were available.

A large panel of selected candidates was prepared for the purpose of expediency.