- (1.) Civil Appeal Nos. 3615-3618/2002. In these appeals by Rajasthan Public Service Commission (in short 'the Commission') and its Chairman, challenge is to the legality of common judgment by a Division Bench of Rajasthan High Court disposing of four writ petitions.
(2.) Synoptical resumption of the factual position, almost undisputed is as follows : On 1-6-2001 an advertisement to recruit 116 Munsif Magistrates was issued by the Commission; out of which 59, 24, 19 and 14 were earmarked for the General, OBC, SC and ST categories respectively, in terms of the scheme of the examination, only those candidates who obtained a minimum of 35 marks in each law paper and 40% in aggregate were eligible to be called for interview. For the posts in question, stipulation was that candidates numbering three times the number of posts advertised in each category were eligible to be called for interview. Commission issued interview letters to 302 candidates in respect of 116 vacancies. The shortfall was on account of non-availability of candidates in SC and ST categories. Though the number of posts were 59 in the General category, 189 candidates were called for interview as several candidates who had obtained marks similar to the last candidate had to be called for interview.
(3.) Four writ petitions were filed at Jodhpur Bench of the Rajasthan High Court. They were disposed of on 20th December, 2001 by the impugned common judgment. In the writ petitions the petitioners had sought for the following directions: "(a) by an appropriate writ, order or direction, the Respondents may kindly be directed to consider more candidates from general category as per the posts available and as per the condition-2 of the advertisement; (b) by an appropriate writ, order or direction, the Respondents may kindly be directed to implement the condition-2 of the advertisement for filling up the reserved vacancies adopting the general procedure; (c) any other appropriate writ, order or direction which this Hon'ble Court may deem just and proper in the facts and circumstances of the case may kindly be passed in favour of the petitioner; (d) writ petition filed by the petitioner may kindly be allowed with costs.";