- (1.) THIS bunch of 20 writ petitions has been filed challenging the selections and appointments made on the post of Assistant Review Officer (hereinafter referred to as ARO) in the High Court of Judicature at Allahabad. The bunch has been nominated to this Court under order of the Hon'ble the Chief Justice. For the purposes of overseeing the selections and appointment on the post of ARO the Hon'ble The Chief Justice of the Court constituted a Judges Committee. The process of selection was initiated by publication of an advertisement in newspaper on 29.07.2009. A copy of the advertisement has been enclosed as Annexure-SCA-6 to the supplementary counter affidavit filed on behalf of the High Court. The advertisement mentions that the selection process shall comprise of following phases: (a) preliminary written examination, (b) main written examination (preliminary being objective in nature and main being subjective in nature), (c) computer knowledge test and (d) interview. The preliminary written examination and main written examination were scheduled to take place on one and the same date. The preliminary written examination was to comprise of 100 objective type questions to be answered on OMR Sheet, while main written examination was to comprise of 4 subjective questions. It was provided that only such candidates, who achieve the cut of marks fixed in the preliminary examination in order of merit shall be eligible for their subjective answer sheets to be evaluated and thereafter to undertake the computer knowledge test followed by interview to be held on the same date. Reference- Clause (a) and (b) of the advertisement. The syllabus for the examination was also notified and amongst other it was provided that computer knowledge would mean the knowledge of data entry, words processing and computer operations.
(2.) THE merit list was to be prepared on the basis of the aggregate marks obtained in main examination, computer knowledge test and interview. Before the written test could take place, the Five Hon'ble Judges Committee (hereinafter referred to as the "Committee") in its meeting held on 29th September, 2010 resolved that (a) in view of the Full Court Resolution dated 10.04.2004, the candidates who apply against reserved seats of OBC, SC and ST will be considered against the seats in that particular category to which they belong, (b) Merit list shall be prepared on the basis of marks obtained in written examination i.e. the subjective test and computer test only. Subjective test shall carry 80 marks and the computer test shall carry 20 marks, (c) Minimum marks to be procured by the candidates of all categories in Subjective Test and Computer Test would be 40% each. However, the minimum aggregate of the two tests should be 50% in respect of general category and OBC category candidates, whereas it should be 45% in respect of SC and ST category candidates, (e) After preliminary examinations, candidates 20 (twenty) times the number of vacancies will be declared qualified as per their category. In case if there are several candidates who score same minimum qualifying marks, then copies of all such candidates will be evaluated irrespective of the limitation of 20 times and (f) The number of candidates (who qualify the written examination) to be called for Computer Test will be 4 (four) times the number of vacancies. The written examination both preliminary as well as main were conducted on one and the same date i.e. on 06.02.2011. The computer test took place on 5th, 6th and 7th July, 2011. All the petitioners before this Court applied in terms of the advertisement so published. All the petitioners have qualified the preliminary written examination. Thereafter their written main examination sheets have been examined and in order of merit they have participated in computer knowledge test. The Judges Committee was informed by the Examination Cell vide its report dated 18.07.2011 that the total number of vacancies stood reduced to 400 only, as follows: General-199, OBC-107, SC-83 and ST (including backlog vacancies 8+3)-11. The Committee was also informed that after the written examination as per the minimum norms fixed for qualifying as per the resolution dated 29th September, 2010 only following number of candidates could qualify; General-73, OBC-16, SC-23 and ST-00 (Total 112). After considering the said aspect of the matter the Judges Committee resolved that the cut of minimum qualifying aggregate percentage marks be reduced by 10%. Accordingly, the minimum aggregate qualifying marks for General and OBC category candidates stood reduced to 45%, while that for SC/ST stood reduced to 40.5%. A further relaxation of .5% was provided to SC/ST candidates by the Hon'ble The Chief Justice and therefore the minimum qualifying marks for SC/ST candidates reduced to 40% only. After such reduction of minimum aggregate qualifying marks, Committee was informed that number of candidates who would qualify the examination would be as follows; General-199, OBC-61, SC-43 and ST-00 (Total 303). The Committee also noticed that in the General category the number of candidates, who would qualify the examination within the cut of percentage after reduction of the minimum aggregate, was 222, while in all other categories; namely OBC, SC and ST the number of candidates, who would qualify the examination was less than the number of vacancies available. It was, therefore, resolved that a wait list of 23 candidates of General category be prepared. Under the said decision of the Judges Committee and with the approval of the Chief Justice the results of the selections was declared roll number-wise, without disclosing the category to which the selected candidates belonged, by the Registrar General on 25.07.2011. It contains roll number of 308 candidates. It is this select list which is under challenge in these petitions.
(3.) ON behalf of the petitioners following submissions have been made: (1) Under the advertisement for selections and appointment as ARO four phases were specified (a) preliminary written examination, (b) main written examination, (c) computer knowledge test and (d) interview. Such procedure, as declared and notified to the candidates under the advertisement i. e. at the time of initiation of the process of selection, could not have been altered in the mids of the selection by the Committee under its resolution dated 29.09.2010 by confining the selections on the aggregate marks obtained in the main written examination and the computer knowledge test. The stage of interview had wrongly been done away. According to the petitioners such change in the norms, regulating the procedure for selection, after the process of selection has been initiated is illegal and unsustainable in view of the law laid down by the Apex Court in the case of Madan Mohan Sharma v. State of Rajasthan, reported in 2008 AIR SCW page 1850 (Para 4). (2) The evaluation of the computer test sheets has been done in a most arbitrary manner for following reasons: (a) D.K. Dwivedi was only the System Manager and therefore an employee of the High Court. The Committee, while asking the Examination Cell to hold the computer knowledge test, could not have delegated its authority to lay down the norms of evaluation upon D.K. Dwivedi. This amount to sub-delegation of authority by the delegated authority, namely the Judges Committee, who were in fact exercising the delegated powers of the Hon'ble The Chief Justice, (b) The decision taken by System Manager on his own to provide (i) that typing of 361-400 words would earn 100% marks so on and that only 2 marks shall be deducted at the maximum irrespective of the number of mistakes committed in typing, (ii) the words not typed being treated to be of no relevance and (iii) awarding of additional marks in the matter of formating etc. are all without any reasonable basis. It is the case of the petitioners that the candidates were provided the text of different judgments for being reproduced during computer knowledge test. The candidates were specifically informed that 500 words were to be typed on the computer in 10 minutes. Every candidate was expected to type 500 words in 10 minutes and if mistakes are committed or words are left out, then such candidates had to be penalized for the same. It is submitted that at no point of time during examination the candidates were informed that if they type 361 to 400 words then for not typing the rest more than 100 words no marks shall be deducted or irrespective of the number of mistakes committed the maximum number of marks to be deducted for mistakes would be 2 only. The arbitrariness of the method is explained by following examples: (i) A candidate who may have committed 350 spelling mistakes while typing only 400 words would still receive 18 out of 20 words, as only 2 marks could be deducted for mistakes, while a candidate who may have typed 300 words with permissible mistakes of 1 word for every 50 words would receive at the maximum 16 marks. (ii) Similarly, two candidates typing equal number of words, for example 325 words with different number of mistakes say 200 and 20 would be treated as equal for awarding the marks. (iii) Lastly even if all the words typed by the candidates are spelling mistakes still he will be awarded marks on simple counting of the words after deducting 2 marks at the maximum. Such procedure on the face of it is arbitrary and amounts to treating unequal as equal. Words not typed are always taken to be mistakes both in the type test and computer knowledge test conducted by the Public Services Commission and other examining bodies.;