UNION TERRITORY OF CHANDIGARH Vs. DILBAGHSINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Leave granted.

(2.) The facts giving rise to the said question lie in a narrow compass. In the year 1989, there arose 32 vacancies. of conductors in CTU of Chandigarh Administration. As there were no Statutory Rules governing the filling up of such vacancies, the Regional Employment Exchange of the Union Territory of Chandigarh was required to sponsor the names of eligible candidates while a three-member Selection Board constituted by the Chandigarh Administration was required to prepare a select list of 32 candidates out of such candidates. That Selection Board interviewed, as many as 446 candidates so, sponsored by the Regional Employment Exchange and prepared a select list of 32 candidates on the basis of marks awardable for their educational qualifications plus the marks awarded for their performance at the interview, a criterion which was said to have been followed by a Selection Board constituted for a similar purpose in the year 1953. That criterion, although required the award of marks for the educational qualification possessed by a candidate up to 110, enabled every member of the Selection Committee to award marks for such candidate's performance at the interview up to 20. The select list of 32 candidates meant to fill the 32 vacancies of conductors in CTU, when was announced on September 11, 1989, it invited severe criticism from the members of both the public and the Press as to the role of the members of the Selection Board in the matter of its preparation. The select list, according to the criticism, was the amalgum of favouratism, nepotism and even corruption resorted to by the members of the Selection Board. The Chandigarh Administration which could not ignore such criticism, got examined the select list which reference to the marks awardable to the candidates for their educational qualifications and the marks awarded by the members of the Selection Board to the candidates as interview marks. Such examination revealed that the members of the Board in the garb of awarding marks to candidates for their performance at the interview had brought into select list the least qualified candidates who had been awarded least marks for their educational qualifications. Such examination also revealed that uniform standards had not been applied to all candidates by the Selection Board in their selection. These revelations, compelled the Chandigarh Administration to conclude that the select list of candidates for appointment as conductors in CTU had not been prepared by the members of the Selection Board fairly and judiciously in that those members had taken undue advantage of the marks awardable by them at the interview to favour the candidates of their choice although there was no clinching evidence of corruption attributable to the members. This situation made the Chandigarh Administration to think of cancellation of the dubious select list prepared by the Selection Board and of the constitution of a new Selection Board to prepare a fresh select list on the basis of only 15 per cent interview marks awardable to candidates as against 30 per cent interview marks awardable earlier, lest the power of the Selection Board to award interview marks may be utilised either to pull up unmerited candidates or pull down the merited candidates. Consequently, the Chandigardh Administration made an order of cancelling the select list of candidates for appointment as conductors prepared by the Selection Board and published on September 11, 1989, and constituted a new Selection Board to prepare a fresh select list of candidates including those who had been interviewed by the earlier Selection Board, according to the fresh selection criteria with 85 per cent marks awardable for educational qualifications of candidates and 15 per cent marks awardable for their performance at interview.

(3.) The newly constituted Selection Board when was about to interview the eligible candidates for selection as conductors for CTU, the respondents in this Appeal, whose names had found places in the cancelled select list of candidates, filed applications before CAT seeking the setting aside of the aforesaid order made by the Chandigarh Administration by which it had cancelled the select list, prepared by the earlier Selection Board and directed the newly constituted Selection Board to prepare a fresh select list of candidates on the basis of altered criteria of marks. CAT which entertained those applications, has by its judgment dated May 27, 1991 not merely set aside that part of the impugned order of the Chandigarh Administration by which it had cancelled the earlier select list but also directed the Chandigarh Administration to appoint in the available vacancies of conductors in CTU the candidates from the cancelled select list in preference to the candidates selected as conductors in the select list prepared by the fresh Selection Board. The Chandigarh Administration, which felt aggrieved by this judgment of CAT has preferred this Appeal by special leave.