- (1.) This order shall dispose of LPA Nos. 820 and 821 of 2011 as both the appeals have been filed under Clause X of the Letters Patent challenging the judgement dated 16.2.2011 whereby CWP No. 2977 of 2009 filed by one Ms. Neena Goyal has been allowed and rest of the writ petitions were dismissed. Aggrieved by the view taken by the learned Single Judge, the Indian Oil Corporation as well as the other writ petitioners in CWP No. 4555 of 2009 have challenged the directions issued by the learned Single Judge. In nut shell, the learned Single Judge has held that Ms. Neena Goyal had applied for allotment of Indane LPG Distributorship at Chunni (Distt. Fatehgarh Sahib) which was reserved for women of open category. She applied for allotment in November, 2006. However, there was some controversy with regard to non submission of proof concerning date of birth alongwith the application form. Ms. Neena Goyal, however, sent a reply claiming that she had enclosed her matriculation certificate issued by the Punjab School Education Board but her date of birth was not mentioned in that certificate. She further claimed that all other documents as proof of her date of birth have been sent which include attested copies of Permanent Account Number issued by the Commissioner of Income Tax, Patiala, LIC Surrender Value Quotation Certificate issued by the Sr. Branch Manager, Life Insurance Corporation of India, Chandigarh. However, it did not find favour with the Indian Oil Corporation and rejected her application on the basis of column no. 1(f) of the application format, as advertised in the Tribune dated 19.6.2006. She did not receive any call letter for interview. She accordingly approached this Court by filing CWP No. 2977 of 2009. On 26.2.2009, this Court issued interim directions to the Indian Oil Corporation to permit Ms. Neena Goyal to participate in the interview which was to be held on 28.2.2009 and the same was subject to the decision of the petition. The petitioner was interviewed and on evaluation, as per the criterion adopted by the Selection Committee, she secured 87.07 marks and was placed at serial no. 1 in the provisional merit list.
(2.) Learned counsel for the Indian Oil Corporation placed reliance on column no. 1(f) of the application form and clause 13(g) and (h) and has argued that no other document was admissible as a proof of date of birth except the matriculation certificate or secondary school certificate and therefore the other documents sent by Ms. Neena Goyal were irrelevant. Placing reliance on clause 13(g) it has been argued that no additional documents were to be accepted or considered after the cut off date and reliance was placed on clause 13(h) of the guide-lines for allotment of dealership which provided that the applications which were incomplete in any respect were not to be considered and no correspondence was to be entertained in that regard. The learned Single Judge after referring to the requirement of age which was fixed at 21 years on the date of application and other documents on which reliance was placed by the Indian Oil Corporation -appellant came to the conclusion that the petitioner had attached matriculation certificate 27.6.1986 (P.6) issued by the Punjab School Education Board although the same did not mention her date of birth. In addition she has attached attested copies of Permanent Account Number Card issued by the Commissioner of Income Tax, Patiala, Income Tax Returns and the LIC Surrender Value Quotation Certificate issued by the Sr. Branch Manager LIC, Chandigarh which clearly depicted her date of birth to be 31.7.1971. The aforesaid fact was not disputed. According to the learned Single Judge all that required to be proved for eligibility as per column 2(b) of the advertisement was that a candidate should not be less than 21 years of age on the date of application and in that context column 1 (f) the date of birth on the date of application was required to be filled in. Unfortunately, the matriculation certificate issued by the Punjab School Education Board did not mention her date of birth which could not be made the basis for declaring her as ineligible for allotment of dealership. The observations of the learned Single Judge in that regard regards thus: ".... The petitioner had submitted the Matriculation Certificate and had also submitted other documents in proof of her date of birth, which when taken into consideration show that she was more than 21 years of age on the date of submission of her application. No doubt, two documents have been mentioned which are required to be attached with the application in support of the age of the applicant but the intention primarily being to ascertain the age of the applicant to determine the eligibility, does not disentitle a candidate from consideration if the document so required is not containing the said information especially when the said document has been issued by the competent Authority on which the applicant has no control and has been issued as per the rules and regulations governing that institute. The petitioner cannot be, thus, held ineligible nor can she be held disentitled to the right of consideration for allotment of a dealership." In view of the above, the learned Single Judge allowed the writ petition and the letters dated 10.2.2009 (P.4) and 19.2.2009 (P.10) challenged by Ms. Neena Goyal have been set aside. She has been held eligible for consideration for allotment of Indane (LPG) Distributorship at Chunni (Fatehgarh Sahib).
(3.) We have learned counsel for the parties at a considerable length and have perused the documents with their able assistance.;