Pradeep Nandrajog, J. - (1.) THE second respondent ERNET India is a society established by the Government of India and is under the administrative control of the Department of Electronics and Information Technology. For the post of Accountant it invited applications from qualified and eligible candidates on May 10, 2011. Only one post was advertised to be filled up. On August 05, 2011 a select panel was prepared as per merit position in which the appellant was at serial No. 3. One Mr. Gagandeep Singh was at serial No. 1 and was offered appointment on August 26, 2011. He accepted the same on September 06, 2011 and after working for only 39 days he tendered a resignation on November 23, 2011. A letter offering appointment was issued to one Mr. Alok Kumar who was at serial No. 2 of the select panel on December 02, 2011 but he did not accept the offer.
(2.) THE appellant filed a writ petition on May 27, 2013 praying that a direction be issued to ERNET India to offer appointment to him, and the claim was premised on an office memorandum dated June 13, 2000 issued by DoPT mandating that reserve panel for posts where selection was through UPSC should be maintained for one year and if requisite number of persons either do not accept letter offering appointment or having accepted the appointment died or resigned during the life of the panel, the appointment should be offered to the other candidates as per their merit position. Vide impugned order dated February 13, 2015 the learned Single Judge has held that once a person accepts a letter offering appointment to a post, the vacancy lapses and the next candidate in order of merit would have no right to the post in question.
(3.) THE conclusion arrived at by the learned Single Judge is correct.;