The wrong moves of the government have entangled PSC appointments in a long legal battle that has now gone up to the Supreme Court.

When the PSC succumbed to government pressure, job-seekers were the ones affected as they did not get appointed.

The previous government had already put job-seekers in a crisis by reducing the tenure of rank lists for uniform posts in six departments to one year.

The current government went against rules in its initial days by deciding to extend the terms of only a few rank lists. This resulted in legal problems.

The government asked the PSC to increase for six months the validity of only those lists whose tenure had not been extended even once before.

The PSC pointed out that rules don't allow extension of validity of selective lists. Any decision on increasing tenure would have to be applied to all the rank lists, it said, adding extending only a few would lead to legal issues and allegations of corruption. The government, however, dismissed the PSC’s objections.

Following this, the candidates who did not benefit from an increase in tenure filed a case before a single bench of the High Court and also the Administrative Tribunal. Both the court and the tribunal rejected the PSC's decision. The government and the PSC appealed to the division bench of the high court, but the verdict went against them. They have now filed an appeal in the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court has directed that the vacancies that would have been available to candidates had the tenure of the rank lists involved in the case been extended, should be kept aside. As a result, many posts are now vacant without any recruitment.

The validity of the rank lists for uniform posts in the police, excise, forest, motor vehicle, prison and fire departments was reduced from three years to one year during the previous government by the then PSC chairman. The government justified the decision saying it wanted to recruit young people in these posts. It also amended the rules disallowing extension of the tenure of these rank lists.

Candidates who study hard to make it to the rank lists now face the likelihood of not getting an appointment if enough vacancies are not reported in a year. They are hoping that the government will be willing to extend the validity of these lists to three years in its future notifications.