Nafr High Court
Case Details
Digitally signed by RAMAKANT NIRALA 1 2025:CGHC:774 NAFR HIGH COURT OF CHHATTISGARH AT BILASPUR WPS No.2355 of 2015 Judgment reserved on : 05.11.2024 Judgment delivered on : 06.01.2025 1 - Onkar Prasad Mishra S/o Shri Vishnu Prasad Mishra Aged About 56 Years, working as Assistant Grade-2 (WBN) At Court of Tasildar, Thakhatpur, Tehsil and P/S Takhatpur, Revenue And Civil District- Bilaspur Chhattisgarh versus Petitioner 1 - State Of Chhattisgarh Through The Secretary, Department Of Revenue And Disaster Management, New Raipur, P.S.- Rakhi Raipur, District Raipur Chhattisgarh 2 - Chhattisgarh Professional Examination Board, Raipur, Through Chairman, Chhattisgarh Professional Examination Board, Raipur, Tehsil, Revenue And Civil Dist. Raipur, Chhattisgarh 3 - Shri Pritam Kumar Sahu At Present Working In The Clerk Cadre, C/o Collector Distt. Rajnandgaon, Tehsil Revenue And Civil Distt. Rajnandgaon Chhattisgarh
Legal Reasoning
4 - Shri Abhishek Thakur At Present Working In The Clerk Cadre, C/o Collector Distt. Janjgir Champa, Tehsil Revenue And Civil Distt. Janjgir Champa Chhattisgarh 5 - Shri Ramprasad Baghel At Present Working In The Clerk Cadre, C/o Collector Distt. Bastar, Tehsil Revenue And Civil Distt. Bastar Chhattisgarh 6 - Anuj Patel At Present Working In The Clerk Cadre, C/o Collector 2 Distt. Jashpur, Tehsil Revenue And Civil Distt. Jashpur Chhattisgarh 7 - Shri Umesh Kumar Kushwaha At Present Working In The Clerk Cadre, C/o Collector Distt. Surajpur, Distt. Surajpur Chhattisgarh 8 - Shri Panchram Salame At Present Working In The Clerk Cadre, C/o Collector Distt. Balod, Chhattisgarh 9 - Sanjay Minj At Present Working In The Clerk Cadre, C/o Collector Distt. Korba Chhattisgarh 10 - Shri Praful Kumar Gupta At Present Working In The Clerk Cadre, C/o Collector Distt. Rajnandgaon, Tehsil Revenue And Civil Distt. Rajnandgaon Chhattisgarh 11 - Miss. Karuna Vishwakarma At Present Working In The Clerk Cadre, C/o Collector Distt. Korba Chhattisgarh 12 - Miss. Jayshree Rajan Pathe At Present Working In The Clerk Cadre, C/o Collector Distt. Bilaspur Chhattisgarh 13 - Miss. Joli James At Present Working In The Clerk Cadre, C/o Collector Distt. Bastar Chhattisgarh 14 - Miss Asha Kashyap At Present Working In The Clerk Cadre, C/o Collector Distt. Bastar Chhattisgarh (Cause title taken from CIS Software) Respondent(s) For Petitioner For Respondent-State For Respondent No.2 : Mr. Rupesh Shrivastava, Advocate : Ms. Pragya Pandey, Dy. GA : Mr. R. A. Memon, Advocate on behalf of Dr. Sourabh Kumar Pandey, Advocate For Respondent Nos.3, : Ms. Versha Ghosh, Advocate on behalf of Mr. 5, 8, 10, 13 & 14 For Respondent No.11 : Mr. Chetan Singh Chouhan, Advocate on behalf of Mr. Ashish Shrivastava, Sr. Advocate Devershi Thakur, Advocate Hon’ble Smt. Justice Rajani Dubey C A V Judgment 3 1. The petitioner has preferred the present writ petition praying for the following reliefs:- “1. This Hon'ble Court be pleased to call for the entire record of selection to the post of Nayab Tahsildar for perusal of the selection process. 2. This Hon'ble Court be pleased to direct the respondent no.1 to consider the name of the petitioner for appointment to the post of Nayab Tahsildar from the Clerical Cadre with all consequential benefits. 3. This Hon'ble Court be pleased to set aside the list of the select candidates/order dated 24-6-2015 (Annexure P/5) issued by the Respondent No. 1 in respect of selection of the respondent no 3 to 14 from the cadre of Clerk.” 2. Brief facts of the case are that the petitioner belongs to unreserved category and was working as Assistant Grade-2 (WBN) at Court of Tasildar, Thakhatpur, Distt Bilaspur (CG) at the relevant point of time. The respondent had published the advertisement on 04- 03-2014 for direct recruitment to post of Nayab Tahsildar from departmental candidates who's were belonging to the cadre of Revenue Inspector/Patwari and Clerk and the petitioner having qualification for holding the post of Nayab Tahsildar as departmental candidates from the clerical cadre applied for the same. According to said advertisement, total 29 post of the Nayab Tahsildar were to be filed from the Care of Clerk out of which 12 were reserved for the Un-Reserved category, 4 posts were reserved for the Schedule Caste category, 9 posts were reserved for the Schedule Tribe category and 4 post were reserved for the OBC Category. The petitioner according to 4 the said advertisement had applied for the post of Nayab Tahsildar from the cadre of Clerk as a unreserved category. After scrutiny of the applications as well as documents of the candidates, the respondent No.2 called eligible Candidates including petitioner for appearing in the written test. The written test was conducted by the Chhattisgarh Professional Examination Board and admit card was also issued. The petitioner appeared in the said examination on 20-07-2014 and he was also succeeded in the said examination and he obtained the total marks 129.517 and the overall rank of the petitioner was at Sr. No.6 on the basis of merit in the examination, but after declaration of the result of the written test, the respondents have not published the final merit list and without publishing the final merit list the respondent authority have issued the order dated 24-06-2015, whereas name of the petitioner has not been considered for the appointment to the post of Nayab Tahsildar, in spite of the fact that overall rank of the petitioner was 6 and there is no adverse remark in his service record, whereas the respondent No.3 to 14 have been selected to the post of the post of Nayab Tahsildar from clerical Cadre as unreserved category. Hence the present petition has been filed by the petitioner. 3. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the action of the respondents is illegal, arbitrary and against the settled principal of law. After declaration of the result of the written test, the respondents have not published the final merit list according to 5 the clause 7 of the advertisement and without publishing the final merit list the respondent authority has issued the order dated 24- 06-2015 by which appointed the candidates to the post of Nayab Tahsildar from the Clerk cadre whereas name of the petitioner has not been considered for appointment to the said post. The overall rank of the petitioner in the written examination was 6 and there is no adverse remark or entries in his service record, as such he is qualified and eligible for the appointment to the post of Nayab Tahsildar. The impugned selection list/appointment as well as the action on the part of the authority are illegal for the reason that all the appointment to the public office have to made in affirmity with article 14 of the Constitution of India. Therefore, the writ petition deserves to be allowed. 4. Learned State counsel opposes the submission made by the petitioner’s counsel and submits that the instant petition is not maintainable and accordingly is liable to be dismissed outrightly as the petitioner has prayed for setting aside the selection list /order dated 24/06/2015 (Annexure P/5) whereas only few selected and appointed candidates i.e. the respondent no.3 to 14 have been arrayed as party respondent, whereas all the selected and appointed candidates, whose names are mentioned in the selection list (Annexure P / 5 ) under Clerical cadre are necessary party, but they have not been arrayed as party respondents. She further submits that the petitioner secured 6th position in overall rank in the written examination conducted by 6 the respondent no. 3. As per the condition no.7 enumerated in the advertisement, in order to evaluate the last 5 years of ACRs of the successful candidates, a committee consisting of 3 members i.e. Joint Secretary, Department of Revenue as Chairman, Director (Land Records) and Tahsildar as Members has been constituted vide order dated 22/04/2015. The said committee, after evaluating the ACRs of the successful candidates including the petitioner, has awarded the marks to the candidates including the petitioner and accordingly the committee, after evaluating the ACRs of the petitioner, has awarded total 90 marks. The petitioner has secured total 129.52 marks in the written examination which is evident from Annexure P/4 and by adding the evaluation marks of ACRs with the marks obtained in the written examination, the petitioner has been awarded total 219.52 marks (129.52+90=219.52) whereas under General Category, the last candidate who has been selected and appointed to the post of Nayab Tahsildar is respondent No.9 Sanjay Kumar Minj, who has been awarded total 226.09 marks. Since the said Minj has secured total 116.09 marks in the written examination and he has been awarded 100 marks for his last 5 years ACRs, but inadvertently total 226.09 marks has been awarded to him whereas after calculating the marks obtained in the written examination and the marks awarded to him for his last 5 years of ACRs, total marks comes to 216.09. When this anomaly / mistake came to the knowledge of the authority, the 7 mater was placed for rectification of the said mistake before the committee and the committee after considering the matter has rectified the said mistake and the said Mr. Minj has been treated to be selected against the post reserved for open scheduled tribe category candidate. The committee has also recommended the name of one Suresh Kumar Rai, who was earlier in the final list of clerical cadre at serial no.8 and just below the name of Mr. Minj, for appointment to the post of Nayab Tahsildar and accordingly a fresh final select list has been prepared. To substantiate the above, copy of the minutes of the committee dated 02/09/2015 alongwith the relevant pages of fresh final select list and earlier final select list has also been filed as Annexure-R/1. In fresh select list, the said Mr. Suresh Kumar Rai has secured total 225.31 marks (125.31 + 100 = 225.31) which is above the marks obtained by the petitioner and the said Mr. Suresh Kumar Rai is the last selected candidate under unreserved category. Thus, it is apparent that the total marks of the petitioner is much below to the marks of the last selected candidate namely Suresh Kumar Rai and hence the petitioner, despite being secured 6th position under unreserved category in the examination, has not been selected and appointed to the post of Nayab Tahsildar. Hence, there is no illegality or infirmity on the part of the respondents. The respondents have acted strictly in accordance with law after following the entire conditions contained in the advertisements (Annexure P/1 and P/2) and no candidates, who have secured 8 the less marks than the petitioner, have been selected and appointed by the respondents. Therefore, the petition is liable to be dismissed. 5. Learned counsel for the respondent No.2 submits that CGVYAPAM was only assigned the task by the respondent no.1 to conduct the recruitment examination for the posts of Nayab Tehsildar. The CGVYAPAM was mere an agency for the recruitment examination for the posts of Nayab Tehsildar and was supposed to conduct the examination in accordance with the guidelines provided by respondent no1. The result of the examinations conducted by CGVYAPAM is based on the merit, which in turn is based on the basis of the marks scored by the respective candidates in the examination. The job assigned by the respondent no.1 to CGVYAPAM was limited, which was only to conduct the recruitment examination for the posts of Nayab Tehsildar and to declare the result on the basis of procedure and parameters set out in the advertisement. The grounds raised in the instant petition do not encompass the authority of the respondent No.2 and the same are answerable by the other respondents. 6. Learned counsel for the respondent Nos.3, 5, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14 & 15 supported the arguments advanced by learned State counsel. 7. Heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the material available on record. 8. It is not disputed in this case that the petitioner belongs to 9 Unreserved Category and was working as AG-II at the Court of Tahsildar, Takhatpur at the relevant point of time and as per advertisement dated 04.03.2014 (Annexure-P/1), he appeared for the post of Naib Tahsildar from departmental candidates who were belonging to the cadre of Revenue Inspector/Patwari/Clerk. It is also not disputed that as per Annexure-P/4, the petitioner secured 129.57 marks in the written examination. 9. As per respondents, condition No.7 clearly enumerated in the advertisement that marks of written examination and evaluation of ACRs were to be calculated and after that select list was prepared. 10. Condition No.7 of the advertisement (Annexure-P/1) is as under:- fyf[kr ijh{kk esa lQy deZpkfj;ksa dh nksuksa “7. iz’u&i=ksa esa izkIr dqy vadks ds vuqlkj izoh.; lwph rS;kj dh tkosxhA rnqijkar ,sls deZpkfj;ksa ds xr ikap o"kksZ ds xksiuh; pfj=koyh dk ewY;kadu foHkkxh; inksUufr lfefr }kjk fd;k tk;sxkA fyf[kr ijh{kk esa izkIr dqy vadksa ,oa xksihuh; pfj=koyh ds ewY;kadu ds vk/kkj ij ,d vafre esfjV lwph rS;kj dh tkosxhA bl vafre p;u lwph esa ls deZpkfj;ksa ds dzekuqlkj uk;c rglhynkj ds :i esa fu;qfDr iznku dh tkosxhA” 11. The respondents have filed Annexure-R/1 containing the list of candidates and it is clear from this list that last 5 years’ ACR marks were calculated of all the candidates. The petitioner’s 5 years’ ACRs are as under:- “2010 - ka 10 2011 – ka+ 2012 – kha 2013 – ka 2014 – kha Total marks for all these years is 90.” 12. Learned counsel for the petitioner has argued that at Sr. No.2 of the said list, Abhishek Rathore was also awarded 90 marks for the last 5 years ACRs and he was even graded c (ga) in the year 2011, but it is clear from this candidate’s grading that he secured total 161.60 marks in the written test and his 2 years ACRs were ka and ka+ and in the year 2009 also, he was awarded ka+ and though he obtained 90 marks, but petitioner was awarded only one ka+, 2 ka and 2 kha, as such it is clear that 90 marks awarded to petitioner is not arbitrary or illegal and last candidate Sanjay Kumar Minj is ST candidate and in the General Category, Suresh Kumar Rai was the last candidate, who was awarded total 226.36 marks. 13. It is not the case of the petitioner that any candidates selected by the respondents obtained lower marks in his category and it is clear from Annexure-R/1 that the Committee rightly awarded grading to all the candidates and selected all the candidates as per Annexure-P/5. The petitioner has failed to point out any illegality or irregularity in calculating the marks of all candidates 11 as per written test and as per ACRs, as such no case is made out in favour of the petitioner. 14. The petition is without any merit and is liable to be and is hereby dismissed accordingly. Nirala Sd/- Rajani Dubey Judge