VIJAYAN Vs. KERALA PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This order will dispose of three Writ Appeals and one Writ Petition in which common questions of law and fact are involved and the Writ Appeals arise out of a common order passed by the learned Single Judge dismissing the Writ Petitions filed by the appellants. Since arguments were addressed in W. A. No. 545 of 2002, the facts are being taken from this case

(2.) By notification dated 26th October 1999 the Kerala State Public Service Commission (for short 'the Commission') invited applications from eligible candidates for appointment to the posts of Clerks/Cashiers in the 14 District Cooperative Banks in the State of Kerala. 50 per cent of the vacancies in each district were reserved for the employees of the Primary Cooperative Societies and the remaining 50 per cent had to be filled up by open competition and candidates had the option to apply for both the category of vacancies. The appellants who are employees of the Primary Cooperative Societies which are affiliated to the District Cooperative Banks applied for the posts reserved for the employees of Primary Cooperative Societies. Their applications were rejected by the Commission on the ground that the Primary Cooperative Society of which they are employees is not affiliated to the District Cooperative Bank in which they had applied for the post. It is this action of the Commission which was challenged by them in the Writ Petition out of which the present appeal has arisen.

(3.) The notification issued by the Commission provided that 50 per cent of the vacancies reported from each District Cooperative Bank for direct recruitment would be filled up by selection from eligible employees of Primary Cooperative Societies. It further provided that application for the said post should be submitted only to one District Cooperative Bank and that the candidates should mention the name of that district in the relevant column in the application and submit the same to the concerned office of the Commission. Note (1) in the notification provided that R.187 read with R.186 of the Kerala Cooperative Societies Rules, 1969 (hereinafter called 'the Rules') would be applicable to the selections to be made for the posts. It is common case of the parties that by a subsequent notification dated 29th March 2000, note (1) from the earlier notification had been deleted. The argument of the learned Counsel for the appellants is that the only requirement of the notification is that the applicant should be an employee of a Primary Cooperative Society and, therefore, the Commission was not justified in rejecting the applications of the appellants on the ground that the Primary Cooperative Society of which the appellants were employees was not affiliated to the District Cooperative Bank in which they applied for the post. He further argued that by the subsequent notification of 29th March 2000 note (1) was deleted and, therefore, R.186 and 187 were not applicable to the selection and that the appellants were eligible for appointment to the posts in terms of the notification. The learned Counsel for the Commission on the other hand strenuously urged that an applicant would be eligible for the post only if he was an employee of a Primary Cooperative Society which was affiliated to the District Cooperative Bank in which he was seeking appointment. He relied upon two Division Bench Judgments of this Court in Muraleedhara Kurup v. State of Kerala (W. A. No. 532 of 2002 decided on 29-7-2003) and Sathi Devi v. Kerala Public Service Commission (W. A. No. 2385 of 2002 decided on 3-10-2002) upholding the Judgment of the learned Single Judge.