D. Ramakka vs District Level Recruitment Committee, Dk and Others

The petitioners who were selected for appointment to the posts of Primary School Teachers have sought for a writ of mandamus directing the respondents to appoint them to the posts to which they were selected.

Briefly stated the facts are as follows:

The District Level Recruitment Committee of the Education Department, of the Dakshina Kannada District, called for applications for appointment to the posts of Primary School Teachers. The petitioners were among those, who had submitted their applications seeking selection. List of selected candidates was published as per notification Ex. A. The names of the first three petitioners are included at Sl. Nos. 92, 93 and 94 respectively in the said list. The names of two other petitioners are included at Sl. No. 9 and Sl. No. 1 of the reserve list. The grievance of the petitioners is that all the persons in the list including those in the reserve list, except these petitioners have been appointed, and several among the appointed persons are below the petitioners in the list of selected candidates. Their contention is that by the denial of appointments to them they have been discriminated against in violation of Art. 16(1) of the Constitution.

Having regard to the nature of the injury complained of and the facts of the case, after issuing Rule Nisi on 4-7-1979, the case was ordered to be posted for hearing in the week commencing 16-7-79. The case is pending hearing for more than 1 year. No statement of objection is filed. Sri B.B. Mandappa, the learned High Court Government Pleader asked for further time to file the statement of objection. I do not find any justification to grant any further time to the respondents to file statement of objection as they have already had more than one year''s time to file their statement.

Having regard to the rule which regulates the making of appointment of candidates included in the select list as also the right to equal opportunity guaranteed under article 16(1) of the Constitution, the petitioners who hold higher rank in the select list cannot be denied appointments and candidates placed lower in the list cannot be preferred for appointment. See Vasanth Bapu v. State of Mys, 1972 Mys.L.J. Sh.N. 139 and Nazir Hussain v. State of Mysore, 1964 Mys.L.J. Sh.N. 218.

Sri B.B. Mandappa, learned High Court Government pleader, however, argued on the basis of the records available with him. He submitted that the Selection Committee noticed certain mistakes in preparing the list of selected candidates having due regard to the reservation of posts to various categories and prepared a revised list dated 5-4-1978 and ad published it on the Notice Board of the office of the Deputy Director of Public Instructions who was the Chairman of the District Level Recruitment Committee, and as in that list names of the petitioners had been deleted they had no right to seek appointment on the basis of the first list prepared by the Committee.

Learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that the revised list was not valid in view of the Karnataka Education Department Services (Department of Public Instruction) (Recruitment) Rules 1967 and the provisions of the Karnataka State Civil Services (Recruitment Committees) (Constitution and Function) Rules, 1971, under which the committee had no power to revise the list of selected candidates published by it.

The 1971 rules were amended by the Karnataka State Civil Services (Recruitment Committees) (Constitution and Function) (Amendment) Rules, 1973, by which Rule 12-A was added to the Rules. It reads:

"12A. Control: The Government may at any time call for and examine the record of any proceedings under these rules of any committee for the purpose of satisfying itself as to the legality of the proceedings and after such enquiry as it deems necessary, if the Government is satisfied that the order or proceedings of the Committee is contrary to law and has resulted in miscarriage of justice and should be modified or amended or reversed, pass such orders thereon as it deems just or may by order direct the committee to revise the decision or order or proceedings in such manner and within such time as may be specified in the order and the Committee shall comply with the directions:

Provided that no order shall be made to the prejudice of any party unless he has had an opportunity of being heard." The above rule confers controlling powers on the State Government and also empower the State Government to revise a list of selected candidates prepared by any Committee functioning under the Rules, if the Government is satisfied that the select list so prepared was contrary to law. It is significant to note that the proviso to the said rule prescribes that no order shall be passed to the prejudice of any party unless he had an opportunity of being heard.

In the instant cases, it is not the case of the respondents that the State Government had exercised its powers under Rule 12A and that any direction was issued to the Selection Committee to publish a revised list. The conferment of the power to revise the Select List, on the State Government indicates that the Committee had no such powers. Nevertheless the Selection Committee had taken steps to revise and publish a revised list though it had no such powers and that too without giving any opportunity to the petitioners whose rights are affected by the deletion of their names. Even the State Government can revise a list only after hearing the parties likely to be affected by revision of the Selected List. There fore, the revision of the Select List was illegal and consequently of no effect. Hence the petitioners are entitled to claim appointment on the basis of their rankings in the first list published by the Selection Committee

For the reasons aforesaid, I make the following order:

(1) Rule made absolute.

(2) A writ in the nature of mandamus shall issue to the third respondent to appoint the petitioners for the post to which they were selected in the select list dated 9-3-1978 (Exhibit-A) forthwith.

(3) The petitioners shall be entitled to the costs. Advocates'' fee Rs. 100/- in each of these petitions.