MADHUMITA DAS Vs. STATE OF ORISSA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS Writ Application has been filed by the petitioner with a prayer to direct the Opp. Parties to allow her to appear at the Orissa Judicial Service Examination, Class II, conducted in pursuance of Advertisement No. 10 of 2003 -04 (Annexure -1) and was scheduled to be held on 29.2.2004.

(2.) THE facts, as delineated in the Writ Petition, in a nutshell are that the petitioner after completing her school career with English back ground ultimately prosecuted her study in Five Years Integrated Bachelor of Laws under Utkal University. On 17.11.2003 the Opp. Party -Orissa Public Service Commission ('Commission' hereinafter) issued an advertisement being Advertisement No. 10 of 2003 -04 under Annexure -1 inviting applications from intending candidates for admission to the competitive examination to be conducted by the Commission for recruitment to the Orissa Judicial Service, Class -II by direct recruitment. The last date for submission of the application in the prescribed form was 15.1.2004. According to the petitioner, she submitted her application in the prescribed form on 12.1.2004 along with the required documents except the certificate of passing Oriya Language Test equivalent to M. E. School standard as, to her knowledge, the result of the Oriya Language Test at which she had appeared on 23.11.2003 was not published by that date, even though the result declaring her to have passed was published on 9.12.2003. The petitioner along with her application submitted an undertaking to the effect that since she had already appeared at the Oriya Second Phase Language Test bearing Roll No. OTTC -009 conducted by the Board of Secondary Education, Orissa, on 23.11.2003, the Oriya Language Test Certificate would be produced as soon as the same would be issued to her. The application of the petitioner dated 12.1.2004 was rejected by the Commission on 7.2.2004 vide Annexure -6 on the ground that the petitioner had not enclosed the certificate of passing the Oriya Language Test. The petitioner has, therefore filed this Writ Application challenging the action of the opposite parties in rejecting her application. After issuing notice to the Opp. Parties, this Court passed an interim order on 24.2.2004 directing the Commission to permit the petitioner to take the recruitment test for O.J.S. but not to publish her result without the leave of the Court and it would be subject to result of Writ Application. According to the petitioner, pursuant to the interim order passed by this Court, she appeared and succeeded in the written test and thereafter appeared at the viva voce test the result of which has not been published till date. Learned Counsel for the petitioner emphatically submits that the petitioner had appeared at the Oriya Language Test conducted by the Board of Secondary Education, Orissa and though her result was published on 9.12.2003, she was unaware of the fact that she had passed the Oriya Language Test and with the impression that her result had not been published, she gave undertaking to furnish the certificate soon after declaration of her result. Now, the petitioner challenges the action of the Commission saying that in view of the undertaking, the Commission should not have rejected her application. That too, according to the petitioner, by the date she submitted her application, she had already passed the Oriya Language Test Certificate on 20.1.2004, she submitted the same before the Commission on the next day, i.e. 21.1.2004, and appeared at the Viva Voce test on 23.6.2004.

(3.) THIS being the factual matrix, the question that falls for determination is whether the application submitted by the petitioner before the Commission for recruitment to the Orissa Judicial Service, Class -II, was valid on the last date fixed for submission of applications. In order to appreciate the point at issue, we may quote the relevant parts of the Advertisement (Anexure -1) :