- (1.) Through this writ petition, the petitioners are claiming that despite their selection by the Committee duly constituted by the Transport Department for Haryana Roadways Depot, Bhiwani they have not been appointed on the posts of drivers by bringing in drivers who were selected for districts other than Bhiwani. The challenge is, thus to the selection list (Annexure P-4) wherein appointment of respondents No. 5 to 29 has been challenged by the petitioners on the above-mentioned ground.
(2.) It is the contention of the petitioners that an advertisement (Annexure P- 4) was issued in July, 2007, by the Department of Transport, Haryana, for recruitment of 910 drivers on contract/daily wages on the basis of which reliance has been placed on Note (i) to contend that a candidate should submit one application only and it can be submitted to the General Manager of any Haryana Roadways Depot in the State where he would like to appear for the test. It is submitted that this Note provides that the person has to apply for appointment to a particular depot and it is there that he would appear for his test and the Selection Committee constituted for holding the test and selection of this depot would select the candidates for that particular depot and the candidates who apply in that depot would only be considered for appointment to the vacancies which are available in that depot. On this basis, the petitioners contend that the selection list (Annexure P-4) is contrary to the advertisement as not only the candidates who had applied for the test before the Selection Committee for the depot of Bhiwani have been selected and appointed but the persons who had applied for other depots and selected by the Selection Committees constituted for those depots have also been appointed in Bhiwani Depots.
(3.) We heard counsel for the petitioners who has argued the case on the same lines as has been pleaded in the writ petition. The petitioners had through their counsel served advance justice demand notice dated 26.6 2008 (Annexure P-5) to the respondents making these very submissions in their legal notice to which the respondents have sent their reply dated 8.10.2008 (Annexure P-6) wherein the stand of the respondents is that the different Selection Committees were constituted at the depot level which was merely a part of the selection process and no powers of final selection were conferred on the Committees. The candidates were called for interview who had passed the test which consisted of dug test, driving test and road test. After the interview, the Selection Committee had graded all the candidates on the basis of the interview and the performance in all the tests. After preparation of the gradation list of all the interviewed candidates the same was forwarded to the Headquarters for final selection. On receipt of the gradation of interviewed candidates from various depots as forwarded by the Selection Committee, the Headquarters had compiled a joint list of all the candidates received from different Committees throughout the State of Haryana and prepared a final merit list. The selection was basically made at the State level and the Depot Level Committees were mere selection process centers and on compilation of the final merit list, the selected candidates were allocated to different depots. The preference of the depots of the selected candidates was kept in view while allocating different depots.;