Sandeep Mehta, J. - (1.) BY way of the instant writ petition, the petitioner has approached this Court assailing the action of the respondent University in not accepting the petitioner's application for being appointed on the post of Estate Officer.
(2.) THE respondent University invited applications from aspiring candidates for appointment to one vacant post of Estate Officer vide advertisement No. 3/2011. It was specifically stipulated in the advertisement that service rules and conditions of Maharaja Ganga Singh University, Bikaner as amended from time to time will be applicable to the process. The Rules stipulated that the selection to the process is to be conducted by a selection committee constituted under sub -rule (4) of Rule 6 of the Rajasthan Universities Teachers and Officers Act, 1974 which reads as below: - - "(4) The Selection Committee, while making its recommendations to the Syndicate under Sub -section (2), shall prepare a list of candidates selection by it in order of merit and shall further prepare 'a reserve list in the same order and to the extent of 50% of the vacancies on the posts of teachers or officers for which the selection committee was constituted under sub -section (1) of Section 5 and shall forward the main list and the reserve list alongwith its recommendations to the Syndicate." The petitioner has raised a grievance in the writ petition that the Selection Committee constituted to consider and evaluate the candidature of the candidates who applied for the post of Estate Officer interviewed three candidates including the petitioner and the respondent No. 2 and thereafter issued the order Annexure -9 dated 8.11.2011 recommending the name of respondent No. 2 for appointment in a totally arbitrary fashion inasmuch as neither any list, in the order of merit of the candidates who appeared for interview was prepared nor any reserve list was prepared by the Selection Committee. The Selection Committee in its proceedings did not even record as to why the candidature of respondent was found preferable as compared to the petitioner. Thus, it is urged that the proceedings conducted by the Selection Committee and the order dated 8.11.2011 whereby the respondent No. 2 was recommended for appointment to the post of Estate Officer without adhering to the mandatory procedure of selection under Rule 6(4) of the University of Rajasthan Act, 1974 are absolutely arbitrary, unjust and deserve to be quashed and set aside.
(3.) THE respondents have filed a reply to the writ petition asserting that as there was only one post of Estate Officer available for recruitment, the Committee was not required to prepare the list of the interviewed candidates in the order of merit. All that was required of the Committee was to recommend name of one candidate found suitable for appointment. It is further pleaded that the reserve list was also to be prepared only for 50% of the vacancies available and as there was only one post of Estate Officer available for selection, no reserve list could be prepared because it would not be possible to prepare a list for half post. On the strength of these submissions, the University has pleaded that the petitioner has no ground to challenge the selection process which was conducted in a fair and legal manner. The respondent No. 2 i.e. the selected candidate Mr. Kuldeep Jain has also filed a reply to the writ petition asserting that the selection Committee constituted by the University assessed the suitability of the candidates in a just and fair manner and thereafter found his candidature suitable for appointment and thus, his name was rightly recommended for the post. It is further asserted that respondent No. 2 has been confirmed in service, and therefore, this Court should be hesitant in interfering with the matter after this long interval of time.;