Shillong, Oct 30: The Meghalaya High Court has allowed the state government to continue with the interview for the process of selection of staff nurse with reservation after the department took a decision to hold the same without seeking approval of the Court.

In its order issued on Monday, the division bench headed by chief justice Dinesh Maheshwari said, “Though, it appears rather necessary to deal with the laxity on the part of the Government in not ensuring timely compliance of the order passed in this matter; but in the interest of the candidates concerned, it is provided that the applicants shall continue with the interviews uninterruptedly, irrespective of pendency of this matter.”

The matter has been listed again for hearing on Tuesday.

It may be mentioned that a petition was filed by Meridalin Kharlyngdoh and others challenging the decision of the state government to annul the process of selection for the post of Staff Nurse and to issue fresh advertisement.

While hearing the application filed by the state government that sought for extension of time granted by the Court to complete the selection process by October 31, the bench stated it has noticed a strange position that even before filing of this application, the applicants had, in fact, already taken a decision on October 16 to hold the interviews from October 23 to November 30.

According to the bench, for the purpose of any decision to extend the process beyond October 31, an appropriate application ought to have been moved well in time, seeking previous approval of this Court.

“However, it appears that the officer/s of the department concerned, showing scant respect to the order of the Court, and of their own, chose to fix the date of interviews even beyond the date of completion fixed by this Court,” the court’s order said.

It also added, “The approach on the part of the department gives a prima facie impression that the process of the Court is rather taken for granted and it is quite intriguing to notice that despite being aware of the outer limit fixed by the Court, the department did not in the first place take all the requisite steps to expedite the matter and then, of its own, fixed the interviews up to 30.11.2017, probably with the assumption that the High Court has no option but to extend the time as fixed by them.”

The Court also expressed serious reservations in the matter whereupon, counsel, S Sen Gupta prayed for time to complete all his instructions and to call the concerned officer in the Court.

In the second call of the matter, Addl.Sr.GA K Khan has appeared with David D. Sangma, Joint Secretary to the Government of Meghalaya in Health and Family Welfare Department.

As regards our queries about the method adopted for calling the candidates for interviews, it is suggested that a notice to that effect was published in the newspaper.

However, learned Addl.Sr.GA as also the Joint Secretary were unable to show such newspaper and were unable to give the name of the newspaper in which such a notice was published and pray for a day’s time, the bench said.

However, the bench said that at present, it would keep other aspects pending for consideration.