- (1.) The appellant before us is a Society called Nair Service society (NSS in short) filed the above appeals through its Secretary against the common judgment and order dated 05. 08.1997 passed by the Kerala High Court in Writ Appeal No. 582 of 1997 etc. batch and also to stay the operation of the common judgment and also by re: straining the respondent authorities from giving effect to the above judgment in any manner and not to appoint any person from the supplementary list. The appellant Society was not a party before the High Court. The appellant-Society sought leave to file the above appeals. The reason given by NSS for filing the appeals by a non-party is that the Kerala Public service Commission (in short 'the KPSC) which had lost in the High Court was not filing any appeal after the impugned judgment which was against the interests of the public and, therefore, the NSS was filing the appeal bona fide in public interest to protect the weaker sections who would not be able to come to this Court after the impugned order. This Court on 09. 01.1998 directed issue of show-cause notice to the respondents and granted leave thereafter on 17. 08.1998.
(2.) The original petitions were filed by the candidates before the High Court seeking to direct the KPSC to advise candidates against the non-joining duty (NJD for short) and also for other consequential and incidental reliefs.
(3.) The KPSC makes the selection of candidates for appointment in Government as well as in governmental bodies like the Kerala State electricity Board (hereinafter referred to as 'kseb'). Appointments in Government service have to be made following the Rules of Reservation laid down in Rules 15 to 17 of the Kerala state and Sub-ordinate Service Rules, 1958 (hereinafter referred to as 'the KSSR') framed under Article 309 of the Constitution. The rules, inter alia, provide for a 50% reservation in the aggregate for Scheduled Castes (SC) ,scheduled Tribes (ST) and Other Backward classes (OBC) They also provide as to how the reservation vacancies are to be filled in by the various categories and castes included in the SC, ST and OBC groups. It is only necessary to note here that every alternate appointment is for Open Competition (merit) and every succeeding alternate appointment is for reserved candidates. Suffice it to say that the first proviso to Rule 15 (C) lays down categorically that in no year reservation, including carrying forward vacancies to a category of post shall exceed 50% of the total number of vacancies for which selection by direct recruitment to that category is resorted to in that year. The Note to the rule lays down that the period of one year for purposes of this proviso shall commence or and from the day on which the rank list of candidates prepared by the Commission in respect of that post comes into force,;