Lucknow: In a major relief to the Uttar Pradesh government, the Allahabad High Court on Monday paved the way for issuing appointment letters to as many as 7,189-woman health workers in the state health department.
A division bench comprising justices Ramesh Sinha and Jaspreet Singh allowed the special appeals filed against an October 19 order of a single-judge bench that had restrained the government from issuing appointment letters to these health workers.
In 2019, the government had sent a requisition to the Uttar Pradesh Subordinate Services Selection Commission (UPSSSC) for appointing women health workers on 9,212 vacant posts in the health department.
Accordingly, the commission issued advertisements, conducted preliminary and written examinations and issued a list of the successful candidates on August 8, 2022. It had also provided the list of the 7,189 candidates against the vacant posts to the director general, family welfare for issuing appointment letters.
Meanwhile, economically weaker section (EWS) candidates Poonam Dwivedi and others filed writ petitions, challenging the list, before the high court’s Lucknow bench. On October 19, the single-judge bench partly allowed the petitions and directed the competent authority to issue fresh income certificates to the petitioners.
The single-judge bench had further directed the commission to consider the petitioners’ fresh income certificates and take fresh decisions as regards the list of successful candidates. It had directed the state government and the commission to issue appointment letters to the selected candidates after concluding the above exercise as regards the petitioners. This had halted the selection process.
Aggrieved by the order of the single-judge bench, the commission had filed the special appeals before the division bench of the high court.