NAVEEN BARAK Vs. ORIENTAL INSURANCE COMPANY LTD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BY this writ petition the petitioner seeks the relief for being appointed to the post of Administrative Officer (Group D) post with the respondent pursuant to the selection process commenced by the advertisement dated 27.2.2010. The petitioner essentially has taken up two basic heads of pleadings in the writ petition. The first pleading is of arbitrary marking of the petitioner in the interview where the petitioner has only been given 1.5 marks out of 30 marks, which cannot be as per the petitioner because the petitioner had received 114 out of 150 marks in the first written exam paper of reasoning; General Knowledge and English, and 20 out of 50 marks in the second written exam of descriptive paper. The petitioner, therefore, states that if he received 134 out of 200 marks in the written exam, he has been arbitrarily given a very low marking of 1.5 out of 30 marks in the interview. The petitioner in this regard further contends that in the interview, which was of just of 2 -3 minutes, only academic qualifications were asked and that there was no other queries put to him. The second pleading/issue which is urged on behalf of the petitioner is that since in the advertisement the passing marks for the interview were not specified, the respondent cannot subsequently specify the minimum marks of 5 out of 30 marks for clearing the interview because it would amount to changing the rules of the game midway by introducing the new criteria which does not exist at the commencement of the selection process.

(2.) ON behalf of the respondent, following defences are raised for seeking dismissal of the writ petition:

(3.) I completely and wholly agree with the entire reasoning given by the learned Single Judge in the judgment dated 11.08.2011 and adopt the same for the purpose of the present case also. In addition, I would also agree with the arguments which have been urged by the respondent with respect to the fact that not only the petitioner but also as many as 109 other persons received only 1.5 marks in the interview and a total of 116 out of 257 which persons who were called for the interview failed to qualify 5 cut off marks prescribed for the interview and therefore there is no discrimination which is meted out to any of the candidates including the petitioner. As also stated above, in fact 11 other persons also got 1.5 marks in the interview and they otherwise had received total higher marks than the petitioner, but these 11 persons also were not selected because they only received 1.5 marks in the interview.