- (1.) The petitioners before this Court are Law Graduates who aspire to appear in the Punjab Civil Services (Judicial Services) Examination 2011 and compete for a berth in the subordinate judiciary against a number of vacancies advertised on 15.9.2011(P-1) by the Punjab Public Service Commission, Patiala. The last date fixed for receiving applications is 17.10.2011. The complaint is that the Commission has fixed Rs.2000/-as examination fee for the general category and Rs.500/-for Scheduled Caste/Backward Class category candidates.
(2.) The claim is that a mandamus be issued to the Commission not to charge the alleged exorbitant fee, such as that fixed and to scale it down. The claim is based on a comparison of examination fee charged by recruiting agencies from both general and reserved category candidates in the judicial services examination conducted by other States such as Haryana, Delhi, Karnataka, Uttrakhand and Rajasthan. Though the attack is based on unreasonableness, the underlying claim appears to spring from inter-state discrimination and that, therefore this Court should call upon the Commission to reduce the examination fee in exercise of its writ jurisdiction.
(3.) We have heard the petitioner appearing in person and have perused the file.;