- (1.) In all the above writ petitions, common grievance and question of law is involved, therefore, all these writ petitions are decided by this common judgment/order.
(2.) In all these writ petitions, common facts are that an advertisement was issued by the Rajasthan State Road Transport Corporation, Jaipur on 5th March, 2010, whereby posts of Driver/Conductor/Artisan Grade-II/Artisan Grade-III in different disciplines were advertised. The Petitioners in the above writ petitions applied under the reserved category of Other Backward Classes (OBC) and other reserved categories for respective post of Driver/Conductor/Artisan Grade-II/Artisan Grade-I. Being eligible and qualified for their respective posts, the Petitioners were allowed to appear in the written examination conducted by the Respondent Corporation. Thereafter, result of the examination was declared in which all these Petitioners were declared unsuccessful under the category of OBC etc. because they did not obtain cut-off marks prescribed for the OBC and other reserved category candidates for the posts of Driver/Conductor/Artisan Grade II/Artisan Grade-III.
(3.) After declaration of the results when cut-off marks were published by the Respondents on the website it came to the knowledge of all the candidates belonging to the OBC and other reserved categories that cut-off marks for the General category for the posts of Driver/Conductor/Artisan Grade-II/Artisan Grade-III are less than the cut-off marks prescribed for the OBC category. Further, in some of the categories like Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and SBC, the cut-off marks are higher than the cut-off marks for the General category. Therefore, raising a legal ground before this Court, all these writ petitions have been filed by the Petitioners and their main contention is that after judgment of Hon'ble Supreme Court in the cases (1) Indra Sawhney v. Union of India, 1993 AIR(SC) 477, (2) R.K. Sabharwal v. State of Punjab, 1995 2 SCC 745 and (3) Ritesh R. Sah v. Dr. Y.L. Yamul and Ors., 1996 AIR(SC) 1378, at the time of preparing merit for appointment, the State Government is required to first consider the candidature of all the candidates including General and reserved categories against the posts of General category; and, after preparing merit list for the posts of the General category, while considering all the candidates including reserved category candidates, reservation is required to be given as per law in respect of the remaining seats; meaning thereby, main contention of the Petitioners is that after the above referred judgments, no General category candidate can be appointed having less percentage of marks than the candidates of reserved categories and candidates of reserved categories are required to be considered as per their merit against the posts of General category. Therefore, while inviting attention towards the cut-off marks published by the Respondent Corporation, it is submitted by all the learned Counsel appearing on behalf of the Petitioners in these writ petitions that the cut-off marks of the General category is less than cut-off marks of OBC and other reserved categories which is evident from Annex.-7 to the writ petition in S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 2183/2011, therefore, it is obvious from Annex.-7 that cut-off marks prescribed for General category is less than the cut-off marks for the reserved categories for all the posts; meaning thereby, as per learned Counsel for the Petitioners, the Respondent Corporation has completely bid good-bye to the aforesaid judgments of Hon'ble Supreme Court rendered in Indra Sawhney's, R.K. Sabharwal's and Ritesh R. Sah's cases (supra), therefore, the merit list which is prepared while applying totally illegal method of reservation in contravention of the adjudication made by the Supreme Court deserves to be quashed and directions are required to be given to the Respondent Corporation to prepare fresh merit list for the posts of Driver/Conductor/Artisan Grade-II/Artisan Grade-III while following the adjudication made by the Hon'ble apex Court in the aforesaid judgments.;