AJITH G. DAS Vs. STATE OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Leave granted.

(2.) The present appeals arise from a judgment of the Division Bench of the High Court of Kerala dtd. 14/2/2024 in OP(KAT) No.298 of 2023 and in OP(KAT) No.311 of 2023, upholding the decision of the Kerala Administrative Tribunal [In short, "KAT"] in O.A. Nos. 893/2023 and 878/2023. The matter pertains to the recruitment process conducted by the Kerala Public Service Commission, [In short, "KPSC"] for the post of Junior Health Inspector Grade-II in the Municipal Common Service across various districts of Kerala. The dispute arose due to KPSC's refusal to expand the rank lists for the said post, despite several vacancies remaining unfilled owing to peculiar circumstances surrounding the selection process.

(3.) The recruitment process commenced with KPSC issuing two separate gazette notifications. The first notification, dtd. 26/12/2014, was published under Category No. 571/2014, inviting applications for the post of Junior Health Inspector Grade-II in the Municipal Common Service for nine districts of Kerala. Subsequently, on 29/5/2015, KPSC issued another notification under Category No. 137/2015, inviting applications for the same post in five additional districts. Both notifications outlined the eligibility criteria and detailed the selection process, which included a common written test and an interview. Following the completion of these processes, KPSC published the rank lists for the notified districts. The rank list under Category No. 137/2015 was issued on 12/2/2020 (Rank List No. 80/2020/SSV II) for some districts and on 19/2/2020 (Rank List No. 96/2020/SSV II) for the remaining districts. The appellants herein were included in these rank lists.