- (1.) V. K. Gupta, C. J. With the consent of the learned coun sel for the parties, this petition is being disposed of finally today at the motion hear ing stage without admitting it for hearing.
(2.) RESPONDENT no. 2, Uttarakhand Public Service Commission invited appli cations from eligible candidates for ap pointment to the posts of Professors, Readers and Lecturers in Ayurvedic Col leges of the Government of Uttarakhand in various specialties. In this petition, we are concerned only with the selection on the posts of Lecturers because all the four petitioners considering themselves eligible applied for the posts of Lecturers. Rule 15 of U. P. Ayurvedic and Unani Degree Col lege Lecturer Service Rules, 1990 is the only Rule relevant for the procedure to be adopted for selection. It reads thus : "15. Procedure for direct recruitment- (1) Applications for being considered for selection shall be invited by the Commission in the prescribed form notified by the Commission. (2) The Commission shall having re gard to the need for securing due rep resentation of the candidates belong ing to Schedule Castes, Schedule Tribes and other categories in accord ance with rule 6 call for interview such number of candidates who fulfill the requisite qualifications as they consider proper. (3) The Commission shall prepare a list of candidate in order of their profi ciency as disclosed by the marks ob tained by each candidate in the inter view. If two or more candidates equal marks the Commission shall arrange their names in order of merit of the basis of their general suitability for the service. The number of the names in the list shall be larger (but not larger by more than 25 per cent) that number of vacancies. The Commis sion shall forward the list to the ap pointing authority. " Under sub-rule (3) of aforesaid Rule 15 it is clear that the interview of the candidates is the only method of selection and the marks obtained in the interview alone would be the determinative factor in deciding the merit of the individual can didate or the inter-se merit of all the ap pearing candidates. As per sub-rule (3) (supra) since no other mode of selection has been prescribed in Rule 15 or else where, it becomes abundantly clear that the candidates have to be subjected to in terview for selection and the marks ob tained at the interview would decide the merit of the candidates. The question which arises for our consideration in this case is how many out of the eligible candidates, and in what manner, were required to be called for in terview.
(3.) IN para 3 (iv) of the counter affi davit filed on behalf of respondent no. 2 it has been stated that for two posts against the general category of Lecturers in the specialty of Drauya Gun 57 persons had applied, out of which 50 candidates were found eligible. For the post of Lec turer (Kaya Chikitsa) against four posts in the general category, 96 candidates had applied, out of which 88 were found eli gible. For the post of Lecturer (Sharir Rachna) against the solitary post in the general category, 33 persons had applied, out of which 29 were found eligible. The Commission's stand is that for each post 10 candidates (or the requisite number, whichever is less) were required to be called for interview. We do not want to dwell into this aspect of the matter. The only issue which thus arises for our consideration in this petition is this : How should the Commission decide as to which 10 (or shorter number) out of the candidates who had applied should be called for interview? The answer which is non-controversial is that of course 10 best candidates out of the total candidates who have applied had to be picked up for being called for interview. The correspond ing question which thus arises is: How to determine, based on merit, as to which were the best 10 candidates to be called for interview.;