ISRANI, J. - (1.) -
(2.) THIS writ petition has been filed with a prayer to direct the State Government to carry forward one remaining post from non- gazetted employees, quota of 1982 examination to the results of the succeeding year, i.e., 1983 examination. It is further prayed that by rounding of the figure of 0.98, one seat should have been reserved for NGE in Rajasthan Co-operative Service Examination, held in the year, 1983. Briefly, the petitioner is a non-gazetted employee. He possessed all necessary qualifications and appeared as non-gazetted employee in the examination of Rajasthan State (RAS etc. ) & Subordinate Services (RTS etc. ) Combined Competitive Examination, 1983, which was conducted by the Rajasthan Public Service Commission, Ajmer. The petitioner's name appeared at No. 200 in the result (Anx.5), which was published in the Rajasthan Gazette, 1984. In 1983, there were three posts reserved for non-gazetted employees (NGE). All the three reserved seats were filled-up by such candidates, belonging to NGE category, who had been placed on higher position than the petitioner. It is submitted by Mr. U.N. Bhandari, learned counsel, that the petitioner's name appeared at S.No. 200 and, if there were one post more, he should have been appointed . It is further submitted that, in the year, 1982, one vacancy of NGE remained un-filled, due to non-availability of suitable person. Therefore, when three vacancies in the year, 1983, were filled-up, the one vacancy of 1982, which had remained un-filled in the category of NGE, should have been carried forward & filled-up and the petitioner should have been given appointment. The learned counsel also submitted that in Anx.l, the system of Roster has been published by the Appointments Department, Government of Rajasthan, Jaipur. At internal page 4 of this Annexure, points of NGE have been mentioned. Anx. 2 (Appendix V) which, in fact, is a part of Anx.l, was marked out by the learned counsel to show that by example, the Government itself has shown that reservations have to be brought forward from the previous year and reservations have to be carried forward. Next ground raised by the learned counsel is that there were 14 seats for Rajasthan Co-operative Service and not even one seat was reserved for NGE. It is pointed out that as per Roster system, 7% seats have to be reserved for NGE. Therefore, there were fourteen seats and the figure for reaching one post by 7% reservation system, comes to 98%. It is, therefore, submitted that this 98% should have been rounded of to one and it should have been reserved for NGE candidate. Had it been done by the State Government in Anx. 1, the petitioner would have got appointment, in any case, to this post. It is submitted by Mr. M.K. Kaushik, learned Deputy Government Advocate, that it has been provided in the Note given at the bottom of Anx. 1 that "if there are only two vacancies to be filled in any recruitment year not more than one may be treated as reserved and if there be only one vacancy it should be treated as unreserved. If on this account, a reserved point is treated as unreserved, the reservation may be carried forward to the subsequent two recruitment years."
(3.) IT is further pointed out by the learned counsel that, since there were more than two vacancies in the category of NGE, the question of carrying forward for another two years of the seat of 1982 did not arise. IT is also submitted that so far as the rounding of one seat in the fourteen seats of the Rajasthan Co- operative Service is concerned, it will not be appropriate to round of the seat and when there is only one vacancy in the reservation, then one seat has to be reserved. Since the point reached is 0.98%, therefore, no reservation of one seat was required to be done. I have heard the learned counsel for both the parties and gone thorugh the documents on record. It will be appropriate to take the second ground first. It is admitted position that there were 14 seats in the Rajasthan Co-operative Service, in the year, 1983. One seat was not provided by the respondents, since it slightly fell short of 7%. The learned counsel for the petitioner has drawn my attention to a Division Bench judgment of this Court given in Navneet Purohit vs. State of Rajasthan & others (1). In this matter, out of 70 vacancies of RAS, 4.90% vacancies were to be reserved for non-gazetted employees. The State Government rounded of this figure and kept five seats reserved for NGE. On the same analogy, it can be said that if the figure comes to 98%, it was only appropriate to have rounded it of at figure 1 to give advantage to non-gazetted employees, who also aspire to rise in their career and appear in the competitive examination, for which the State Government itself has thought it appropriate to reserve some seats for them. It is only appropriate that there should be uniform policy in such matters. If the discretion is used in a particular case, but is not used in another similar case, it results in discrimination and arbitrariness creeps in. When the principle of reservation is accepted for non-gazetted employees, it is only appropriate that such rounding of the figure should have been made applicable to this category also. I am, therefore, of the considered opinion that the State Government should have rounded of.98% figure to one seat and should have provided one reserve seat in the Rajasthan Co- operative Service from 14 vacancies available in the year, 1983, to NGE candidates. Since, I have already reached to this conclusion, as mentioned above, I do not feel it necessary to decide the other controversy, regarding the carry-forward principle to be applied to NGE candidates. In the result, the writ petition is allowed and the State Government is directed to create one post in Rajasthan Co- operative Service, on which the petitioner should be given appointment, within a period of three months. It is made clear that the petitioner shall not be entitled to get any difference of the wages/salary from the time this petition was filed and decided. He will be entitled to receive the salary/emoluments of the post, on which he will be appointed, within a period of three months, from today. However, his seniority will be counted from the date the three months' period expires. ;