Application under Articles 226 & 227 of Constitution of India. --------------- Sabita Nayak … v. – State of Odisha and Others
Case Details
IN THE HIGH COURT OF ORISSA AT CUTTACK W.P.(C) No.17220 of 2023 Application under Articles 226 & 227 of Constitution of India. --------------- Sabita Nayak …… Petitioner - Versus – State of Odisha and Others ...…. Opp. Parties Advocate(s) appeared in this case:- _____________________________________________________________ For Petitioner(s) : Mr. L. Bhuyan, Advocate For Opp. Parties : Mr. S. N Patnaik [Addl. Government Advocate] M/s. N. Lenka, H.K.Mohanta Ms. N. Lenka, P.K.Barik & Ms. S. Rana & G. Dash, Advocates (For O.P.No.6) ___________________________________________________________ CORAM: JUSTICE SASHIKANTA MISHRA JUDGMENT 12.12.2025 SASHIKANTA MISHRA, J. The Petitioner in the present writ petition calls in question the correctness of order dated 22.10.2022 Page 1 of 13 passed by the Additional District Magistrate, Keonjhar in Anganwadi Appeal Case No. 02 of 2022. 2. Facts of the case are that pursuant to an advertisement issued on 28.07.2021 by the CDPO, Keonjhar for engagement of Anganwadi Workers of different Anganwadi Centers, the Petitioner submitted her application in respect of Dhanurjayapur Anganwadi Center. Six candidates in total had submitted applications, out of whom one remained absent during verification of documents. As such, the selection was confined to five candidates. According to the Petitioner, the present Opposite Party No.6, who was a candidate, was not eligible for consideration as she had submitted an invalid resident certificate being issued in the year 2015. Nevertheless, her candidature was considered and she was selected by the Selection Committee. The Petitioner came to know about the documents submitted by Opposite Party No.6 by obtaining information under the RTI Act. It was revealed that the Opposite Party No.6 had submitted another residential certificate on 15.10.2021, though she had already been engaged by then. The Petitioner initially approached this Page 2 of 13 Court in W.P.(C) No.41803 of 2021 but the same was disposed of by order dated 04.02.2022 granting her liberty to prefer appeal before the appropriate forum. Accordingly, the Petitioner preferred the above mentioned appeal. The Appellate Authority, however, held that the candidature of present Opposite Party No.6 had been accepted by the Selection Committee, after dealing with all the objections received and no objection was received after declaration of the result. As such, the Appellate Authority was not inclined to interfere and the appeal was rejected. 3. Being aggrieved, the Petitioner has filed this writ petition with the following prayer:- “It is, therefore, the petitioner prays that your Lordship may graciously be pleased to admit this application and call for the record and after hearing from the parties be pleased to quash the selection of opposite party No.6 in respect of Dhanurjayapur Aganwadi Center of Sadar Block of Keonjhar district by setting aside the order dated 25.10.2022 passed by the opposite party No.3. And/or pass any other order(s), direction(s) as this Hon’ble Court may deems fit and proper. And for this act of kindness the petitioner shall, as in duty bound ever pray.” Page 3 of 13 4. Counter affidavit has been filed by Opposite Party Nos.3 and 5, inter alia, stating that though the resident certificate submitted by the Opposite Party No.6 was of the year 2015 but at the time of verification, she had submitted an undertaking to allow her to submit fresh resident certificate after obtaining the same from the competent authority and after receiving the same, she submitted it before the Selection Committee. Further, the in-charge Anganwadi Worker, Kandaraposi-2 and lady Supervisor, Kandaraposi submitted reports regarding residential status of all candidates, which indicated that Opposite Party No.6 belongs to Dhanurjayapur Anganwadi center. Therefore, her candidature was accepted for selection. It is further stated that Opposite Party No.6 secured the highest mark being 57.50% marks, while the Petitioner secured only 51.67%. Another candidate, namely, Mamata Majhi secured 56.17% marks. Therefore, the Petitioner being in the third position will not be eligible for selection even if the candidature of Opposite Party No. 6 is rejected. 5. The Petitioner has filed rejoinder to the counter filed by Opposite Party Nos. 3 and 5 stating that there is no Page 4 of 13 provision to submit the required documents later, rather, as per the guidelines, all documents are to be submitted along with the application. It is also stated that the Petitioner secured 56.66% marks and is in the second position as per information supplied to her under the RTI Act. 6. Counter affidavit has also been filed by Opposite Party No.6 stating that the Petitioner never raised any objection against the selection of Opposite Party No.6 at the appropriate time and therefore, cannot be allowed to question the same belatedly. Opposite Party No.6 had submitted the resident certificate of year 2015 but as an abundant caution, the Selection Committee directed her to file the recent residential certificate. It is further stated that the provisions of Odisha Miscellaneous Certificate Rules, 2017 are not applicable to the Petitioner as she is an Arts graduate. 7.
Legal Reasoning
Heard Mr. L. Bhuyan, learned counsel for the Petitioner, Mr. S.N. Patnaik, learned Addl. Government Advocate for the State and Mr. N. Lenka, learned counsel appearing for the Opposite Party No.6. Page 5 of 13 8. Mr. Bhuyan would argue that admittedly, Opposite Party No.6 had submitted an invalid resident certificate, which could not have been accepted by the Selection Committee. Moreover, the Selection Committee has no power to accept any document after the cut-off date as per the settled position of law. The above exercise admittedly having been undertaken in the present case, the selection is rendered illegal. Mr. Bhuyan has relied upon certain judgments of the Supreme Court as well as of this Court, which shall be referred to at the appropriate place. 9. Mr. S.N. Patnaik, learned Addl. Government Advocate, would submit that the requirement as per the guidelines dated 02.05.2007 of the Government is that the selected candidate must be a resident of the service area of the Anganwadi Center in question. It is not disputed that Opposite Party No.6 fulfills the other requirements. She had submitted a resident certificate and also produced a fresh certificate to prove that she was a permanent resident of the service area. Moreover, she had secured the highest marks and was therefore, rightly selected. Page 6 of 13 10. Mr. Lenka would argue that the question of validity of the resident certificate was never raised by the Petitioner at the time of submitting objections. Except for the technical ground raised by the Petitioner, she could not place any material either before the Appellate Authority or before this Court to show that Opposite Party No.6 is not a resident of the service area of the Anganwadi Center. Since admittedly Opposite Party No.6 was the most meritorious among all candidates, her selection cannot be faulted with. 11. The facts of the case as narrated are not disputed. As per the advertisement dated 28.07.2021, the candidates were required to submit, among other documents, a permanent resident certificate issued by the Tahasildar. The same is in consonance with the guidelines dated 02.05.2007 of the Government that the person to be selected as Anganwaidi Worker must belong to the service area of the center. It is not disputed that Opposite Party No.6 submitted a resident certificate issued in the year, 2015. Said certificate was issued under the provisions of Odisha Miscellaneous Certificates Rules, 1984. Said Rules do not prescribe any period of validity of the resident Page 7 of 13 certificate. The parties have however based their arguments referring to the provisions of the Orissa Miscellaneous Certificate Rules, 2017, which underwent an amendment in the year 2017, whereby sub-rule 5 of Rule-6 was amended as follows:- “The validity of resident certificate shall be five years from the date of issued.” The above provision has been heavily relied upon by the Petitioner to contend that the resident certificate submitted by the Opposite party No.6 along with her application was invalid as it was more than five years old. There is no dispute that the resident certificate produced by the Opposite Party No.6 was issued on 03.07.2015 by the concerned Revenue Officers. The same was issued in Form- III under Rule-3 of the 1984 Rules. Rule-3 provides as under:- “3. Categories of miscellaneous certificates -Subject to the provisions hereinafter contained a Revenue Officer shall be competent to grant miscellaneous certificates of the following categories: (i) xx xx xx (ii) Resident/nativity certificate (in Form-III) xx xx xx” Page 8 of 13 As already stated, there is no provision stipulating the period of validity of such a certificate in the 1984 Rules. The 2017 Rules were enacted on 31.03.2017 in supersession of the 1984 Rules. Rule-3(1)(i) provides for the issue of resident certificate in Form No. I. As already stated, sub-rule (5) of Rule-6 provides that the period of validity of such certificate is five years. The question is, whether the 2017 Rules can be applied to the certificate issued under the 1984 Rules. As per Rule 1 (2) of the 2017 Rules, the same shall come into force from the date of publication in the Odisha Gazette. It is not disputed that Rules were published in the Odisha gazette on 17.04.2017, which is therefore, the date on which the 2017 Rules came into force. The 2017 Rules do not contain any saving clause. Under such circumstances, the provisions of General Clauses Act can be referred to. Section 5 of the Odisha General Clauses Act, 1937 reads as follows:- “5.Effect of repeal.:- Where any Orissa Act repeals any enactment hitherto made, or hereafter to be made, then, unless a different intention appears, the repeal shall not- (a) revive anything not in force or existing at the time at which the repeal takes effect; or (b) affect the previous operation of any enactment so repealed or anything duly done or suffered thereunder; or Page 9 of 13 (c) affect any right, privilege, obligation, or liability acquired, accrued or incurred under any enactment so repealed; or (d) affect any penalty, forfeiture: or punishment incurred in respect of any offence committed against any enactment so repealed; or investigation, legal proceeding or (e) affect any remedy in respect of any such right, privilege, obligation, liability, penalty, forfeiture, or punishment as aforesaid; and any such investigation, legal proceeding or remedy may be instituted, continued or enforced, and any such penalty, forfeiture or punishment may be imposed as if the repealing Act had not been passed.” 12. It is therefore, abundantly clear that the certificate issued under the old Rules would retain its validity notwithstanding the enactment and coming into force of the 2017 Rules. It is also otherwise well settled that a statutory enactment (with includes Rules) shall ordinarily be prospective in its application unless made specifically applicable retrospectively. The judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of Zile Singh v. State of Haryana, reported in (2004) 8 SCC 1 can be referred to, wherein the following observations are noteworthy. “13. It is a cardinal principle of construction that every statute is prima facie prospective unless it is expressly or by necessary implication made to have a retrospective operation. But the rule in general is applicable where the object of the statute is to affect vested rights or to impose new burdens or to impair existing obligations. Unless there are words in the Page 10 of 13 statute sufficient to show the intention of the legislature to affect existing rights, it is deemed to be prospective only-“nova constitutio futuris formam imponere debet non praeteritis” — a new law ought to regulate what is to follow, not the past. (See Principles of Statutory Interpretation by Justice G.P. Singh, 9th Edn., 2004 at p. 438.) It is not necessary that an express provision be made to make a statute against retrospective retrospectivity may be rebutted by necessary implication especially in a case where the new law is made to cure an acknowledged evil for the benefit of the community as a whole (ibid., p. 440).” presumption and the 13. From the above discussion, it is clear that the resident certificate submitted by Opposite Party No.6 along with her application was a valid certificate having been issued under the 1984 Rules. Significantly, the advertisement merely requires the candidates to produce a resident certificate issued by the Tahasildar, without specifying that the same should have been issued recently or under 2017 Rules. The guidelines dated 02.05.2007 also do not contain any such requirement. Therefore, the certificate produced by the petitioner being a valid one, she was rightly treated as an eligible candidate. The argument advanced to the contrary is therefore, untenable and not acceptable. 14. It is borne out from the record that the Opposite Party No.6 submitted an undertaking before the Selection Page 11 of 13 Committee to produce a fresh certificate, which was allowed and she supposedly submitted such certificate within the time granted by the Selection Committee. 15. In the counter affidavit filed by the State, the following has been stated in this regard:- “12. That, the averments taken in Para-10 of the Writ Petition are false and hereby denied. It is submitted that the Opposite Party No.6 submitted her fresh residence certificate within the time given by the Selection Committee during certificate verification. Before that the lady supervisor and the In-charge Anganwadi Worker were submitted the survey reports which reveals that the Opposite Party No.6 is coming under service area and belongs to Schedule Tribe category. As the present Opposite Party No.6 secured highest mark as well as belongs to the service area her case was considered on merit.” 16. From what has been narrated hereinbefore and particularly, the fact that the Opposite Party no.6 has otherwise been found to be a resident of the service area of the center in question, the question of her submitting an undertaking and of obtaining and submitting a fresh certificate, which incidentally also shows her to be a resident of the area in question, is entirely redundant. Though the ADM has not considered the matter from the above perspective, yet this Court finds that the final conclusion arrived at by him is faultless. Page 12 of 13 17. This Court, while concurring with the findings of the ADM, further holds that the Opposite party No.6 was rightly held eligible and selected as Anganwadi Worker. This Court also holds that the ground on which the petitioner seeks to challenge the eligibility and selection of Opposite Party No.6 is entirely misconceived and untenable. 18. For the foregoing reasons, therefore, this Court finds no reason to interfere with the impugned order. Resultantly, the writ petition being devoid of merit, is therefore, dismissed. (Sashikanta Mishra) Judge Orissa High Court, Cuttack, The 12th December, 2025/ B.C. Tudu, Sr.Steno Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed Signed by: BHIGAL CHANDRA TUDU Reason: Authentication Location: Orissa High Court, Cuttack Date: 13-Dec-2025 14:22:52 Page 13 of 13