- (1.) The short issue raised in the instant appeal filed under Clause X of the Letters Patent is whether the recruiting agency like Public Service Commission is within its right to hold a preliminary test with objective type multiple choice question for short-listing the candidates out of the large number of applicants and include those marks in the marks for viva voce. The answer given to the aforesaid question is in the affirmative by the learned Single Judge by holding as under: "In every selection some procedure has to be adopted which may not appease every section of the participants. As long as such procedure does not smack of arbitrariness and irregularity and is applied uniformly to all without any bias or taint the selection on account of adoption of such procedure cannot be guillotined in judicial review. If the facts of the case are to be seen then the Commission had the authority to devise its own procedure. In the selection making process the written examination (objective type) was prescribed in order to short-list the candidates who were far out-numbering the number of advertised posts. The marks so obtained by a candidate were thus included in the interview process which cannot be termed to be arbitrary or irregular and simply because the petitioners did not know about this fact should be making no difference to their case as it is expected of every candidate to perform to the best of his ability when appearing for a test of a competitive nature. If the argument of the petitioners is accepted then it amounts to saying that had they known this fact they would have prepared for this exam in a better way, which is seemingly an absurd proposition. The Court has also examined the records which were summoned during the course of proceedings and has examined the same minutely. It shows no arbitrariness or slant and thus the selection process which is devoid of an element of suspicion are not ordinarily to be interfered with. Even the petitioners have not levelled any mala fides in the selection process except for the grievance highlighted above."
(2.) It has also remained undisputed that the appellant participated in the selection process by taking examination. The learned Single Judge has rightly found that there was no violation of Article 14 and 16(1) of the Constitution by including the marks of the preliminary test in the viva voce. The learned Single Judge has rejected the argument that the appellant did not know about the aforesaid fact so as to enable him to prepare better by observing that in a competitive examination of this nature, every candidate is expected to perform to the best of his ability. There are no allegation of mala fide showing that the aforesaid course was adopted in order to favour some and to prejudice others.
(3.) We have heard learned counsel for the appellant at a considerable length and are unable to find legal infirmity in the view taken by the learned Single Judge. The appeal is wholly without merit and does not warrant admission. Firstly, in order to restrict the number of candidates, a preliminary test with objective type multiple choice question paper is always better. We are further of the view that there is no illegality committed by the Commission in rejecting the argument that the marks of the preliminary test were included in the viva voce illegally. The view of the learned Single Judge does not suffer from any illegality.;