- (1.) Leave granted.
(2.) The appellants were appointed as Voluntary Teachers on tenure basis under the Voluntary Teachers Primary Scheme, 1991. Respondent No. 4 challenged their appoint-ment inter alia on the ground that he was academically more meritorious than the appellants and, therefore, the Selection Committee was not justified in preferring the appellants to him. The State Administrative Tribunal allowed the application filed by Respondent No. 4 and quashed the selection of the appellants, by itself judging the comparative merits of the candidates. The appellants have put that order of the State Administrative Tribunal dated 10th December 1992 in issue.
(3.) In Dalpat Abasaheb Solunke v. Dr. B.S. Mahajan, AIR 1990 SC 434, while dealing with somewhat an identical question, this Court opined (Para 9): "It is needless to emphasise that it is not the function of the Court to hear appeals over the decisions of the Selection Committees and to scrutinize the relative merits of the candidates. Whether a candidate is fit for a particular post or not has to be decided by the duly constituted Selection Committee which has the expertise on the subject. The Court has no such expertise. The decision of the Selection Committee can be interfered with only on limited grounds, such as illegality or patent material irregularity in the constitution of the Committee or its procedure vitiating the selection or proved mala fides affecting the selection etc. It is not disputed that in the present case the University had constituted the Committee in due com-pliance with the relevant status. The Committee consisted of experts and it selected the candidates after going through all the relevant material before it. In sitting in appeal over the selection so made and in setting it aside on the ground of the so called comparative merits of the candidates as assessed by the Court, the High Court went wrong and exceeded its jurisdiction." ;