S. N. Pathak, J. - (1.) Heard the parties.
(2.) The petitioner has approached this Court with the following prayers:- "(I) For a direction commanding upon the respondents to consider the case of the petitioner for appointment on the post of Deputy Collector through limited departmental examination pursuant to Advertisement No. 09/2010 issued by the respondent No. 2, inasmuch as, the petitioner has secured 123.68 marks and the last candidate, who has been selected under the Category of the petitioner i.e. Scheduled Tribe (S.T) has secured 113.70 marks. (II) To hold and declare that since the petitioner belongs to Scheduled Tribe category, which is apparent from the panel prepared for initial appointment by the then Bihar Public Commission on the post of Co-operative Extension Officer dated 24.07.1995, the service book maintained by the Cooperative Department of the petitioner and various documents including the certificate granted by the competent authority of the Department (respondent No. 3), contained in Letter No. 156 dated 23.11.2010, the respondent No. 2 (JPSC) has no power and jurisdiction to treat the petitioner as unreserved category candidate, pursuant to Advertisement No. 09 of 2010. (III) To direct the respondents to issue appointment letter to the petitioner as the petitioner has secured 123.68 marks and the other candidate exactly similarly situated person, namely Asim Bara, who is of the same department, has secured only 119.73 marks, but he has been selected for appointment on the post of Deputy Collector through the Limited Departmental Examination pursuant to advertisement No. 09/2010. Factual Matrix
(3.) Sans details, the facts as averred in the writ petition, in a nutshell is that an advertisement was issued by the Bihar Public Service Commission in the unified State of Bihar for appointment and pursuant thereto, the petitioner being eligible applied. As per the merit list, the name of the petitioner appeared at Sl. No. 98 and it duly recorded the category of the petitioner as 'scheduled tribe', which would be evident from the merit list prepared by the Bihar Public Service Commission dated 24.07.1995 and the name of one Asim Bara also appeared at Sl. No. 44 in the aforesaid merit list. Thereafter, the petitioner joined his services on the post of Co-operative Extension Officer in terms of appointment letter dated 10.11.1995 and service book of the petitioner was opened on 17.04.1997 in which column no. 5, which was meant for the scheduled tribe category, the petitioner has been shown as Schedule Tribe. This service book of the petitioner bears the caste of the petitioner also as 'Gond'. After bifurcation of the State of Bihar, the petitioner was allocated to the successor State of Jharkhand where the petitioner has been working with full devotion tp his duty. The State of Jharkhand issued an advertisement through Jharkhand Public Service Commission (hereinafter referred to as JPSC) being advertisement No. 05/2005 for appointment on the post of Deputy Collectors through Limited Departmental Examination, which was meant for Class-III employee of the State. On perusal of the said advertisement, it appears that the benefit of reservation was to be extended to those employee/candidates only, who would submit a certificate to that effect duly issued by his controlling Officer or the head of the Department. Pursuant thereto, the petitioner being eligible, applied on the post of Deputy Collector. Thereafter, the JPSC issued admit card to the petitioner and accordingly, he appeared in the examination. Thereafter, respondent No. 1 had issued a circular/guidelines dated 14.08.2008, whereby and whereunder, it was duly prescribed that the employee, who were appointed prior to bifurcation of the State and after the cadre division came to the successor State of Jharkhand, but originally a resident of the State of Bihar, the status regarding reservation would not be affected and they would be treated as employees of reserved category. The circular issued earlier was amended and it was in fact prescribed for enjoyment of benefits of reservation to such other candidates like the petitioner, who were originally a resident of Bihar, but whose services were allocated to the State of Jharkhand after cadre division. Thereafter without declaring the result of 2005, in which the petitioner, had appeared earlier, the JPSC again issued an advertisement bearing No. 9/10 for appointment on the post of Deputy Collectors through Departmental Examination in service Class-III employees of the State. This advertisement again duly prescribed that the benefit of reservation shall be extended only to those employee/candidates, who would submit a certificate by his controlling Officer or the head of the Department to that effect. Pursuant thereto, the petitioner being eligible, applied on the post of Deputy Collector through proper channel as would be evident from letter No. 2213 dated 29.11.2010 issued under the signature of Joint Registrar, Co-operative Societies, Jharkhand in which the name of the petitioner appears at Sl. No. 11. The petitioner enclosed, along with the application, a certificate, contained in letter No. 156 dated 23.11.2010 issued by the controlling officer of the petitioner, which duly certified that the petitioner belongs to 'Gond' caste and the service book of the petitioner maintained the category as 'Scheduled Tribe'. Since the petitioner belongs to Scheduled Tribe i.e. reserved category, he submitted the postal order of Rs. 150/- only in place of Rs.300/-. Thereafter, the JPSC issued admit card to the petitioner and he appeared in the examination, which was held on 27.01.2013. On 18.04.2013, the result was published, but the name of the petitioner did not figure in the list of successful candidates. Subsequently, the petitioner enquired into the matter and downloaded marks-statement of his own and one Asim Bara, who was of the Co-operative Department itself and found that he has secured total 123.68 marks and said Asim Bara has secured 119.73 marks in total, but surprisingly, Aism Bara was selected as his roll No. 9100845 appeared amongst the list of selected candidates in the result dated 18.04.2013. The petitioner also downloaded the cut-off marks from the website in which it was shown that last selected candidate under the Scheduled Tribe category had got 113.07 marks only. The grievance of the petitioner is that he has not been selected despite the fact that he has secured more marks than the last selected candidates in his category as respondent JPSC has treated him as a Unreserved Category candidate. Being aggrieved, he filed representation before the respondents- authorities but his grievance has not been redressed as yet. Left with no other efficacious, alternative and speedy remedy, the petitioner has been constrained to approach this Court invoking the extraordinary jurisdiction of this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India for redressal of her grievances.;