A SAGEER Vs. KERALA STATE PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE issue in this writ petition concerns itself with the rejection of the petitioners' candidature for the post of Painter Grade II. Complaining that the rejection is based on either curable minor defects or without any substantial reason at all, the petitioners have approached this Court.

(2.) BRIEFLY stated, all the petitioners, five in number, having the requisite experience of varying periods, applied to the post of Painter Grade II under the 2nd respondent Corporation based on Ext.P1 notification dated 14.05.2008, issued by the first respondent. Initially, through Ext.P13, the first respondent published the list of rejected candidates, which included the names of the petitioners at serial Nos.55, 128, 417, 503, 399 and 508 respectively. The reason assigned for the rejection of the candidature of all the petitioners is that their experience certificates reflect that they worked on daily wage basis. Assailing the action of the first respondent that the rejection is not in accordance with the recruitment regulations, the petitioners filed the present writ petition.

(3.) THE learned counsel for the petitioners has primarily contended that the petitioners' working as daily wagers is no bar as experience for considering them to the post of Painter Grade II in terms of the notification and the regulations governing the recruitment. He has further submitted that the first respondent has kept on improving or changing its stand at every turn after the petitioners' filing the writ petition: it supplemented reasons by citing one ground after another in justification of its action in rejecting the candidature of the petitioners. According to him, the first respondent has virtually abandoned its first ground of rejection that the petitioners produced experience certificates showing them as daily wagers and has gone on adding so many other extraneous grounds which never were in the contemplation of the first respondent. The learned counsel has strenuously contended that all the petitioners have more than five years' experience and that they have been eminently suited to be considered for the post of Painter Grade II.