NIRMALJIT KAUR,J. - (1.) The prayer in the present petition is to declare the petitioner as successful in Phase-II of Stenographer Competitive Examination-2011 in accordance with the amendment introduced in the Rajasthan Subordinate Offices Ministerial Services Rules, 1999 and Rajasthan Secretariat Ministerial Services Rules, 1970.
(2.) The Rajasthan Public Service Commission invited applications for recruitment to the post of Stenographers by way of competitive Examination, 2011 through Advertisement dated 06.09.2011. The Scheme of examination under Paragraph 7 of the Advertisement consisted of Phase-I and Phase-II. The Phase-I consisted of Paper-I of General Knowledge, General Science and General Knowledge of Rajasthan and Paper-II of General Hindi and English. The Phase-II of examination was that of a test of efficiency in both English and Hindi Stenography. It was also provided in Note 2 to the Clause 5 of the Advertisement that the reservation policy and the selection process shall be subject to amended Rules and directions issued by the State Government. The petitioner being eligible applied in pursuance to the said advertisement. He duly cleared the Phase-I of the competitive examination and qualified to participate in Phase-II of the competitive examination. The petitioner was issued Admit Card for participating in Hindi Stenography and Typing Efficiency Test. He qualified the Hindi Stenography and thereafter he was allowed to appear in English Stenography Test. He could not qualify the English Stenography Test and therefore, was declared as "fail" and was not selected. Out of total 606 posts, only 75 candidates were selected in the Secretariat Services and only 38 candidates were selected for Subordinate Services. As per Proviso to Rule 29 of the Rajasthan Subordinate Offices Ministerial Services Rules, 1999, the Commission could not recommend any candidate who has failed to obtain a minimum of 40% marks in each of the paper of Phase-I and a minimum of 36% marks in each of the paper of Phase-II of the competitive examination of Stenographer. Thus, only those candidates who had secured a minimum of 36% marks in each of the paper of Phase-II of the competitive examination were declared to have passed the examination. Meaning thereby, that a candidate was required to be proficient in both Hindi and English Stenography. The State Government realized that the same was a folly as only handful of the candidates could clear the competitive examination and number of posts remained vacant in spite of eligible stenographers either in Hindi or in English being available. Realizing the folly, the Rule 29 of the Rules of 1999 and proviso to Rule 22 in the Rules of 1970 were amended on 14.03.2016. The requirement of "minimum of 36% marks in each of the paper of Phase-II" was substituted by the expression "a minimum of 36% marks in the paper opted in Phase-II". Thus, a candidate was required to secure minimum of 36% of marks only in one of the two subjects, either in Hindi or in English.
(3.) In view of the amendment, learned counsel for the petitioner while praying that the petitioner should be declared successful in terms of the amended Rule introduced vide Notification dated 14.03.2016, submitted that since the amendment in the recruitment Rules were introduced when the selection process was still in currency, the same should be given effect to and all candidates who had cleared the Stenography in one of the two subjects should be declared successful and appointment should be accordingly granted. Secondly, the advertisement itself clearly provided that the selection process shall remain subject to any changes made by the State Government in the reservation policy and in the Rules of recruitment and since the selection process is still under the process as the RPSC has not recommended any names for appointment to the State Government, the respondents are liable to apply the amended Rules to the selection process.;