S.R.Singh, D.R.Chaudhary, JJ. - (1.) Common questions of law and facts inter-knit these petitions and the respective counsel having expressed themselves in concurrence to common disposal, it would be apt to dispose them of by a composite judgment.
(2.) The facts draped in brevity are that the U. P. Public Service Commission issued an advertisement-bearing No. A-1/E-1/1997-98 inviting applications upto 12.2.1997 in respect of 548 posts of Principals and Senior Lecturers for Government Intermediate Colleges and normal/training colleges besides 200 posts of Dy. Collector/Dy. S.P./other allied services for which Combined State/Upper Subordinate Services (Preliminary) Examinations, 1997, was held on 18.5.1997. It was. however, expressly provided in the advertisement that the number of the vacancies might increase or decrease. The petitioners applied for the posts of Principal (Hill Cadre) and appeared in the preliminary examination the result of which was pronounced on 3.7.1997. In all, 722 candidates including the petitioners herein romped home in the preliminary examination held for the posts of Principals and lecturers and accordingly, they went ahead with appearing in the main examination. The result of the main examination was announced on 8.1.1998. The number of vacancies, as declared in the result, was, however, pruned to 443 as against 548 posts initially advertised. Though the petitioners were not amongst the candidates declared successful in main examination, they were provisionally allowed by the Court to be interviewed and on the basis of interim order passed by the Court, the final result of the selection was declared on 25.1.1998. The break-up of 443 posts was as under : (a) Principal (Plain Cadre) -19 (b) Principal (Hill Cadre) -238 (c) Senior Lecturer (PlainCadre) -162 (d) Senior Lecturer (Hill Cadre) -24 Total = 443 The figure of 238 posts of Principal belonging to Hill Cadre was admittedly inclusive of 111 posts belonging to reserved classes that were carried forward from the previous recruitment year, 1996 and accordingly, these vacancies were allocated to the respective reserved categories as per Section 3 (2) of the U. F. Act 4 of 1994. Allocation of posts to general candidates was made out of remaining 127 posts. The 238 posts of Principal belonging to Hill Cadre were allocated to various classes/categories as under ; (a) General -69 (b) Scheduled Castes -70 (c) Scheduled Tribes -06 (d) O.B.C. -93 Total = 238 The figure of 238 was inclusive of 15 posts of physically handicapped, Dependants of Freedom Fighters and Defence Personnel adjusted horizontally in the respective class to which they belonged.
(3.) The petitioners in this fascicle of writ petitions have circumscribed their claims as against the posts of Principal ear-marked for Hill Cadre. The only grouch of the petitioner spelt out in these cases and as submitted by their learned counsel, is that the over-all reservation out-ran the limit of 50%. It has been submitted with vehemence by Sarvsri Ashok Dhusan, Ashok Khare and D. S. Singh that where due to unavailability of suitable candidates in any of the vacancies reserved under sub-section (1) of Section 3 of the U. P. Public Services (Reservation for S.C./S.T. and O.B.C.) Act, 1994, the posts remain unfilled, the same may be carried forward over to the next year commencing from 1st of July in which the recruitment is to be made "subject to the condition that in that year, total reservation of vacancies for all categories of persons mentioned in sub-section (1) would not exceed 50% of the total vacancies." (Credence has been placed upon sub-section (4) of Section 3 as also the law laid down by the Apex Court in Indra Sawhney's case. AIR 1993 SC 477. It has been canvassed by the learned counsel that 111 unfilled vacancies of 1996 falling in the reserved categories could no doubt be clubbed with the vacancies of the recruitment year in question but while computing the quota of reservation for reserved categories of candidates, care should have been taken that the total reservation of vacancies for all categories of persons mentioned in sub-section (1) did not exceed 50% of the total vacancies. This principle, submit the counsel, has been infringed upon and it is owing to this reason that the petitioner could not be selected.;