- (1.) THE array of the parties as well as the matter taken up for consideration present a piquant situation. This court's employees (8 in number) raised a grievance about proposed selection for vacancies in the cadre of Bench Secretary Grade II and challenged this court's measures taken on the administrative side through a writ petition on the judicial side impleadihg this court as opposite party. This is the history of Civil Misc. Writ Petition No. 20989 of 1993 in which a learned single Judge granted partial relief to the said 8 employees, the administrative side of this Court, therefore, has filed this special appeal before this court which is how this appeal has been posted under orders of the Hon'ble the Chief Justice for hearing before this Court.
(2.) SRI Rakesh Dwivedi, learned Additional Advocate-General has been heard in support of this special appeal against the aforesaid judgment of learned single Judge, dated 22nd September, 1994 at sufficient length. SRI Ashok Khare has also been heard at great length on behalf of respondent-Employees. Sri Mohd. Hashira Siddiqui, Sri Ishwar Chandra Sharma, Sri Bajrangi Lal Srivastava, Sri Jagat Pal Singh, Sri Mohd. Akram Siddiqui, Sri Ratan Prakash Gupta, Sri P. K. Jauhari and Sri Hira Lal filed the writ peti tion praying that office memorandum, dated 1-6-1992 issued by the Registrar of this Court through which applications were invited from amongst eligible candidates for being brought in the list of approved candidates for appoint ments to the post of Bench Secretary Grade II. Further prayer was that the petitioners be appointed Bench Secretary Grade II because their names found place in the list of 41 (forty-one) candidates prepared by Selection Committee and that ail the vacancies in existence as on 27- 5-1992 be filled in through the unamended procedure and rules, without taking note of subsequent changes in the mode of recruitment. The learned single Judge has held that it was open to the appointing authority to determine the number of appointments to be made and the mere fact that a candidate's name appeared in the select- list did not entitle him to a mandamus for being appointed. The learned single Judge further recorded a finding which for ready reference should be quoted here : "in the present case also the appointments have been made strictly in the order in which the names of the candidates were placed in the approved list. There was no constraint under the rules of 1976 that the appointing authority shall make an appointment of a Bench Secretary Grade-11 either because there was vacancies or because the names of the petitioners are there in the list prepared by the selection committee, though in the present case names of all the candidates therefrom have not been approved by the Chief Justice, and the said list is in existence. "
(3.) THE learned counsel for appellant Sri Dwivedi has objection to the last two sentences occurring in the aforesaid quotation and has challenged its validity on several grounds to be discussed hereinafter. He further argued that the selection committee was constituted properly and the recommenda tions were correctly made. THE then Hon'ble the Chief Justice has in his own handwriting made noting Ifs is apparent from the relevant record. It was argued that the Hon'ble the Chief Justice had rightly fixed 40% marks in the examination subsequently reducing it to 33% to enable some more candidates to be absorbed because of the exigencies requirements, It is argued that all the actions are without any blemish and strictly according to rules and that all relevant procedure have been correctly followed. Sri Dwivedi placed the entire record beginning from the year 1989 concerning the vacancies in the Bench Secretary Grade-II cadre which were brought by the officers of the Registry. Each and every document was examined in the presence of Additional Advocate-General and Sri Ashok Khare, both of whom had been shown the record.;