The Madras High Court on Wednesday (October 8, 2025) dismissed a writ appeal filed by the Tamil Nadu Uniformed Services Recruitment Board (TNUSRB) against a selection list prepared under the supervision of retired Chief Justice N. Paul Vasanthakumar for recruiting 621 Sub-Inspectors of Police and 129 Station Officers in the Fire and Rescue Services Department.

The Second Division Bench of Justices R. Suresh Kumar and Hemant Chandangoudar held that the former Chief Justice had done a “wonderful exercise” by strictly following the 69% reservation rule as well as the Supreme Court rulings and therefore, the court was fully satisfied with his work. The Bench refused to permit the TNUSRB to redraw the selection list again.

The judges pointed out that the selection list had already been redrawn on multiple occasions since the issuance of the notification on May 5, 2023, for recruiting 621 SIs (498 through direct recruitment and 123 from among in-service candidates). Subsequently, through an addendum, it was decided to recruit 129 Station Officers (103 through direct recruitment and 26 from among in-service candidates) too.

After the conduct of the written as well as physical examinaitons, the provisional selection list was published for all the 750 vacancies on January 29, 2024. Immediately, a batch of writ petitions were filed in the High Court complaining that the reservation policy had not been followed properly. Then, the TNUSRB conceded that certain errors had crept in and agreed to revise the list.

Accordingly, a revised selection list was published on October 3, 2024. This too became a subject matter of litigation with a large number of unsuccessful candidates questioning the selection. Justice C.V. Karthikeyan set aside the revised list on April 22, 2025, after finding grave irregularities and ordered the redrawal of the list once again under the supervision of Mr. Vasanthakumar, former Chief Justice of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court.

The TNUSRB complied with the order and the former Chief Justice prepared a fresh selection list. However, after the submission of his report, the Board filed a writ appeal contending that there were still certain discrepancies in following the communal reservation and that the in-service candidates had been denied of the preference to be given to the Persons who had Studied in Tamil Medium (PSTM) category.

However, not finding any reason to interfere with the former Chief Justice’s report, the Bench led by Justice Kumar said, it was a well settled law that the benefit under the PSTM category could be availed only at the first instance of entering State service and that it could not be extended repeatedly to the same person during every other recruitment process.

The Bench directed the TNUSRB to publish the final selection list, based on Mr. Vasanthakumar’s report, within 30 days and also pay him an additional remuneration of ₹5 lakh within a month. The judges directed the Board to pay additional honorarium of ₹2 lakh each, apart from an equal amount already paid, to two officers who had assisted the retired Chief Justice in preparing the report.