DISTRICT OFFICER K P S C Vs. KARTHIKEYAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal is by the District Officer of the Kerala Public Service Commission challenging the order made by the learned single Judge in O. P. No. 2347 of 1985. Applications were invited for filling up posts of Lower Division Clerks in the various Departments in the State of Kerala. The first respondent is one of the applicants who made the application. The Public Service Commission has prepared a rank list after holding selection, wherein the name of the 1st respondent is included as serial No. 929. For the preparation of the said rank list, the first respondent was treated as a person belonging to other backward classes.' The rank list became operative from 17-5-1983. The life of the rank list is admittedly three years. Nearly 20 months thereafter, the first respondent approached the appellant with a request to consider his claim as a Member of the Scheduled Caste and to give him benefit in the rank list on that basis. The claim put forward in his representation dated 23-1-1985 was that he belongs to 'Vannan' community which according to him is one of the Scheduled Castes. That representation of the 1st respondent was rejected by the appellant on 4-2-1985. It is pointed out while rejecting the representation by Ext. P6 that the 1st respondent has claimed in his application as a person belonging to 'Peruvannan', whereas now he claims to belong to 'Vannan' community. The 1st respondent presented O. P. No. 2347 of 1985 on the 4th of March, 1985 praying for issue of a writ in the nature of mandamus directing the. appellant and the State to appoint him as Lower Division Clerk in the service of the Government of Kerala, treating him as a Member of the Scheduled Caste.

(2.) When the Original Petition was pending, the 1st respondent filed Ext. P9 dated 13-1-1986. That purports to be a communication from the Director of Scheduled Caste Development to the Tahsildar, Palghat, stating that the Director of Kerala Institute on Research and Development Studies for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, Kozhikode, has in his letter reported that he has conducted anthropological investigation about the 1st respondent's community and that he belongs to 'Mannan' community included in the list of Scheduled Castes (Amendment) Order, 1966 and that he agrees with the said finding. Relying on this document it was urged before the learned single Judge that there cannot be any doubt that the 1st respondent is a person belonging to the Scheduled Caste. If that is the position, it was urged that his claim to be considered for inclusion in the rank list on the basis that he is a Member of the Scheduled Caste deserves to be acceded to.

(3.) The learned single Judge accepted this plea of the first respondent and allowed the Original Petition. As by the time the Original Petition was disposed of on the 20th May, 1986, the life of the rank list had expired, the learned single Judge made a further direction to the appellant to extend the validity of the list, to such further period as far as the first respondent is concerned, to enable him to secure the fruits of the order. It was made clear that the first respondent shall not be made to suffer merely for the reason that the validity of the list expired on 17-5-1986. It is the said decision that is challenged by the appellant in this appeal.