Deepak Mandan vs Maharaja Ganga Singh University and Others

Sandeep Mehta, J.—By way of the instant writ petition, the petitioner has approached this Court assailing the action of the respondent University in not accepting the petitioner''s application for being appointed on the post of Estate Officer.

The respondent University invited applications from aspiring candidates for appointment to one vacant post of Estate Officer vide advertisement No. 3/2011. It was specifically stipulated in the advertisement that service rules and conditions of Maharaja Ganga Singh University, Bikaner as amended from time to time will be applicable to the process. The Rules stipulated that the selection to the process is to be conducted by a selection committee constituted under sub-rule (4) of Rule 6 of the Rajasthan Universities Teachers and Officers Act, 1974 which reads as below:--

"(4) The Selection Committee, while making its recommendations to the Syndicate under Sub-section (2), shall prepare a list of candidates selection by it in order of merit and shall further prepare ''a reserve list in the same order and to the extent of 50% of the vacancies on the posts of teachers or officers for which the selection committee was constituted under sub-section (1) of Section 5 and shall forward the main list and the reserve list alongwith its recommendations to the Syndicate."

The petitioner has raised a grievance in the writ petition that the Selection Committee constituted to consider and evaluate the candidature of the candidates who applied for the post of Estate Officer interviewed three candidates including the petitioner and the respondent No. 2 and thereafter issued the order Annexure-9 dated 8.11.2011 recommending the name of respondent No. 2 for appointment in a totally arbitrary fashion inasmuch as neither any list, in the order of merit of the candidates who appeared for interview was prepared nor any reserve list was prepared by the Selection Committee. The Selection Committee in its proceedings did not even record as to why the candidature of respondent was found preferable as compared to the petitioner. Thus, it is urged that the proceedings conducted by the Selection Committee and the order dated 8.11.2011 whereby the respondent No. 2 was recommended for appointment to the post of Estate Officer without adhering to the mandatory procedure of selection under Rule 6(4) of the University of Rajasthan Act, 1974 are absolutely arbitrary, unjust and deserve to be quashed and set aside.

The respondents have filed a reply to the writ petition asserting that as there was only one post of Estate Officer available for recruitment, the Committee was not required to prepare the list of the interviewed candidates in the order of merit. All that was required of the Committee was to recommend name of one candidate found suitable for appointment. It is further pleaded that the reserve list was also to be prepared only for 50% of the vacancies available and as there was only one post of Estate Officer available for selection, no reserve list could be prepared because it would not be possible to prepare a list for half post. On the strength of these submissions, the University has pleaded that the petitioner has no ground to challenge the selection process which was conducted in a fair and legal manner. The respondent No. 2 i.e. the selected candidate Mr. Kuldeep Jain has also filed a reply to the writ petition asserting that the selection Committee constituted by the University assessed the suitability of the candidates in a just and fair manner and thereafter found his candidature suitable for appointment and thus, his name was rightly recommended for the post. It is further asserted that respondent No. 2 has been confirmed in service, and therefore, this Court should be hesitant in interfering with the matter after this long interval of time.

The petitioner has filed a rejoinder to the reply and along with the rejoinder, an application preferred by the petitioner under the R.T.I. Act has been placed on record as Annexure-12. Through this application, the petitioner sought information from the University regarding the merit list prepared by the Selection Committee pursuant to the interviews. In reply, the University communicated to the petitioner an order dated 21.2.2012 wherein it is mentioned that no merit list of the candidates subjected to interview was prepared.

On the previous date of hearing, this Court had directed the learned counsel representing the University to keep the record of the Selection Committee available for perusal. The record of the Selection Committee was produced today for perusal of the Court. Upon perusal of the record, it is manifest that apart from, the order Annexure-9, validity of which has been assailed in the writ petition, there is no document or proceedings sheet, on the strength whereof the procedure adopted by the Selection Committee in its meeting dated 8.11.2011 can be tested on the anvil of reasonableness and fairness. Sub-rule 4 of Rule 6 of the Act specifically provides that the Selection Committee while making its recommendations to the Syndicate shall prepare a list of candidates selected by it in order of merit. Use of the phrase in the rule "in order of merit" makes it evident that the committee is required to make an active comparative evaluation of the performance of all candidates subjected to interview and thereafter to place them in the appropriate order of merit. Even if there was a single post available for appointment, then too a comparative analysis of the performance of the candidates subjected to interview was essential so that the process of selection could be termed as fair and transparent. Though it is true, if a strict interpretation of Rule 6(4) is adopted, preparing of a reserve list of 50% of the vacancies would not be possible in the case at hand because there was only one post but the language of the rule has to be read in a wider sense. The purpose of preparing the reserve list is to ensure that the selection process does not fail if the selected candidate does not join the post and in such a situation, the same can be filled from amongst the reserved candidates. In the case at hand, if the respondent No. 2 for any reason failed to join on the post, then the entire selection process would have failed because no reserve list was prepared by the selection committee. Learned counsel for the respondent has placed reliance upon the judgments in cases of Dhananjay Malik and Others Vs. State of Uttaranchal and Others, AIR 2008 SC 1913 : (2008) 1 CLT 753 : (2008) 3 JT 611 : (2008) 3 SCALE 425 : (2008) 4 SCC 171 : (2008) 1 SCC(L&S) 1005 : (2008) AIRSCW 2158 : (2008) 2 Supreme 328 , Amlan Jyoti Borooah Vs. State of Assam and Others, (2009) 3 JT 351 : (2009) 1 SCALE 56 : (2009) 3 SCC 227 : (2009) 1 SCC(L&S) 627 : (2009) 1 SCR 593 : (2010) 1 SLJ 32 : (2009) 4 SLR 588 : (2009) 1 UJ 375 , Emarata Ram Pooniya Vs. State of Rajasthan, (2005) 3 RLW 1755 : (2005) 2 WLC 358 , Meethanath Vs. State of Rajasthan and Others, (2008) 3 RLW 1864 : (2009) 1 SLR 481 , Ravi Dutt Kalla v. State and Ors. reported in 2012 (4) CDR-2143 (Raj.) in order to assert that a candidate having participated in the process of selection is not entitled to challenge the selection process where the result has gone against him. The said judgments have no applicability to the case at hand inasmuch as the petitioner was admittedly not communicated with the result that he had failed in the interview or was not found suitable. The Selection Committee while making recommendation of the name of respondent No. 2 did not even bother to mention that the candidature of the respondent No. 2 was found suitable and the other candidate who appeared in the interview were unsuitable for being appointed on the post. The Selection Committee did not prepare the list of the interviewed candidates in the order of merit. In this background, this Court is of the opinion that the proceedings conducted by the Selection Committee concerned in its meeting dated 8.11.2011, for making selection on the post of Estate Officer as concluded by the order Annexure-9 is absolutely unjust, unfair and arbitrary on the face of the record. The proceeding held by the Selection Committee was in total violation of the requirement of Rule 6(4) of the Act and thus cannot be sustained.

Resultantly, the writ petition deserves to be and is hereby allowed. The decision taken by the Selection Committee vide order Annexure-9 dated 8.11.2011 to recommend the name of respondent No. 2 for appointment as Estate Officer in the University is hereby quashed and set aside. It is hereby directed that a fresh meeting of the Selection Committee shall be convened within a period of three months from today and all the aspiring candidates who applied in the selection process shall be subjected to fresh interviews by the Committee who shall thereafter make recommendations in light of Rule 6(4) of the Act. No order as to costs.