EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Mar 10: The State High Court today disposed of writ petitions challenging selection of 398 Junior Scale J&K Administrative Service, 84 J&K Police (G) Services and 104 J&K Accounts (G) Services officers.
Justice Hakim Imtiyaz Hussain of J&K High Court Jammu Wing disposed of 10 writ petitions challenging selections of administrative officers as a common question of law arises in all the petitions and are being disposed of by this Common judgment.
According to the judgment, the Public Service Commission (PSC) on December 30, 2008 issued notification invited applications for the preliminary examination of J&K Combined Competitive Examination 2009 for direct recruitment to the posts in the pay scale of Rs 7500-12000 (unrevised) in Junior Scale of J&K.
The petitioners in the present 10 petitions also applied for the preliminary examination and they were allowed to appear in the said preliminary examination. The commission has fixed 208 marks as qualifying marks. The result was declared which was published in the newspapers on August 1, 2009, the names of the petitioners do not figure in the list of candidates who have been selected for appearing in the main examination.
The petitioner challenged the result declared by the PSC and have prayed that they too be permitted to sit in the main examination. The challenge has been made on various grounds that respondents have not properly followed the rules prescribed while making selection of the candidates.
It was also alleged that the selection of the candidates has been made arbitrarily and that the minimum qualifying marks 208 has been fixed irrationally and arbitrarily due to which the petitioners got excluded from the process of the selection. The PSC in its objections has stated that the selection of the candidates has been done fairly and in accordance with the rules.
Justice Hakim Imtiyaz Hussain while disposing of all the 10 petitions observed that senior Adv DC Raina appearing for the PSC has shown the record to the Court which would show that the respondents have called 1/3rd of the candidates who appeared in the examination of which total number of comes to 11000.
While fixing the qualifying marks, the PSC has, according to the Counsel, taken 1/3 number of candidates who appeared in the examination into consideration. Since the PSC has selected 1/3 of the candidates who appeared in the examination and fixed qualifying marks accordingly on this ground, Court could not find any irregularity in the process, fixing of qualifying marks in such circumstances has not effected the number of candidates called for the main examination as prescribe under Rule 8.
It is admitted by the PSC that they did not make selection on category-wise basis at this stage as the preliminary examination does not fall a part of the process of selection. For this they rely upon the judgment of Apex Court whereby the Apex Court has laid down that preliminary examination is not a part of main examination.
In the preliminary examination only an eligibility criteria is fixed and who and in what manner the state as also the PSC would comply with the constitutional requirement of Article 335 should not be ordinarily allowed to be questioned.
In View of the law laid down by the Apex Court, the High Court find the respondents were fully justified in not treating the preliminary examination as a party of main examination and not to make selection on category-wise basis for the main examination. With these observations the High Court dismissed all these 10 petitions. -----JNF