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Judgment
Even though this matter is listed for preliminary hearing, with consent, it is taken up for final disposal.
The appellants/Corporation assailing the correctness of the order impugned dated 28-06-2011 in Writ Petition No. 2234/2008 passed by the learned single Judge, have presented this appeal.
The grievance of the respondent herein in the Writ Petition was that of non-inclusion of his name in the provisional list and the selection list for the post of charge man (paru pathedar) in the services of the first appellant KSRTC; that he submitted his application for the said post in response to the notification dated 24.5.2007 and claimed reservation in II A category and claimed that he is the top scorer in the said category. However, the appellants refused to hold his interview on the ground that the caste certificate is time barred.
The said matter had come up for consideration before the learned single Judge and the learned single Judge after hearing the counsel appearing for the corporation as well as the respondent and after perusal of the records available on file, passed an interim order dated 13-02-2008 directing the appellants to reserve one post in category IIA for the post of charge man during the pendency of the writ petition and has further referred to clause 4 of the recruitment advertisement dated 24.5.2007 and after perusal of the extracted clause, observed that the applicant/candidate for the job in question was required to obtain IIA, IIB, IIIB certificates, as the case may be from the Tahsildar before the last date for the submission of the application form (16-06-2007). The second requirement was that the certificates should be for the current period. The petitioner submitted his application on 13-06-2007 and along with the application form, he also furnished IIA certificate. The scrutiny of said certificate showed that it was issued on 15-06-2002 with the specification that it was valid for 5 years it cannot but be held that its validity period is till 15-06-2007. As per the clause in the recruitment advertisement at Annexure-R1, there was no strict requirement that the validity period should be till 16-06-2007. Even assuming the existence of such a requirement, the respondent was entitled to have his case considered for the job in question in IIA category for one simple reason. Subsequently on 07-12-2007, the respondent obtained a fresh revalidated IIA certificate. There being no change in the caste and income status of the respondent between 15-06-2002 and 07-12-2007, the respondent is certainly entitled to have his case considered for the appointment for the post in question in IIA category. The respondent cannot be shut out on hyper technical ground. Accordingly, the petition was allowed and appellants herein were directed to consider the representations dated 30-01-2008 meaningfully and in the letter and spirit of that order and pass appropriate orders thereon within one month from the date of the production of the certified copy of that order and further clarified that the effect of the interim direction to reserve one post in IIA category for the post of charge man during the pendency of writ petition shall be in force until such time that the respondents pass the order on the respondent''s representation dated 30-01-2008.
2-A. Being aggrieved by the said direction issued by the learned single Judge, the appellants have felt necessitated to present this appeal.
Learned counsel for the appellants/corporation at the out set submitted that mere securing of higher marks by the respondent better than other candidates, would not be a basis or ground to extend the benefit and taking a serious view regarding rejection of the candidature for selection of Paru Pathedar (Chargeman) is not justifiable and therefore, prays for that the impugned order is liable to be vitiated. After considering the submission of the learned counsel appearing for the appellants and perusal of the order impugned, we do not find any error much less material irregularity resulting in miscarriage of justice and the learned single Judge was justified in passing the impugned order directing the appellants to consider the respondent''s case in the light of the representation dated 30-01-2008 meaningfully and in the letter and spirit of the order within one month from the date of the production of the certified copy of the said order. The only objection taken by the appellants/corporation that caste certificate produced was not in force as on the date the respondent appeared for the interview cannot be accepted because the learned single Judge after going through the relevant records available on file has recorded a finding of fact that as there was no change in the caste and income status of the respondent between 15-06-2002 and 07-12-2007, the respondent is certainly entitled to have his case considered for appointment for the post in question under IIA category and the respondent cannot be shut out on hyper technical ground. The said finding is well founded and well reasoned and, therefore, interference by this Court is not called for nor we find any good ground as such made out by the appellants/corporation to interfere with the impugned order.
Hence, the writ appeal is dismissed as devoid of merits. It is needless to clarify that the order of the learned single Judge shall not be treated as a precedent in other cases.