PIL challenging quota for distance education graduates rejected by HC

madurai: the madurai bench of the madras high court on wednesday dismissed a public interest litigation (pil) seeking to bar graduates of distance education programmes from availing the 20% reservation provided for tamil medium students in tamil nadu government jobs.the pil, filed by thiruvaiyaru maheswaran and govindaswamy from thanjavur district, contended that the reservation should apply only to those who pursued regular college education in tamil medium, and not to those who obtained degrees through distance education.a division bench comprising justices s.m. subramaniam and a.d. jagadish chandira (corrected from maria cleet assuming it was a typographical error) observed that the matter pertained to service conditions of employees and hence could not be treated as a public interest matter.during the hearing, tamil nadu additional advocate general veera kathiravan argued that the issue was administrative in nature and beyond the purview of pils.agreeing with the state's submission, the bench ruled that the petitioners may approach the appropriate authorities for redressal and dismissed the plea accordingly.