KERALA PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION Vs. DISTRICT OFFICER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The inexorable desire, unceasing hope and hortative expectation of aspirants to various posts in public services under the Government of Kerala is the soul of all these proceedings.

(2.) We are herein dealing jointly with five writ appeals impugning the judgments of a learned Single Judge of this Court and eleven other original petitions impugning the orders of the Kerala Administrative Tribunal ('the Tribunal' for brevity) . All the writ appeals and original petitions have been filed by the Kerala Public Service Commission (PSC) , save W.A.No.1865/2017, which has been filed by the writ petitioners in W.P.(C) No.18673/2017. Since the foundations of all the assertions and averments in these appeals and original petitions are analogous, if not identical, to each other, we deem it appropriate to dispose of all these matters taken together by this judgment. However, for the sake of convenience, we treat W.A.No.1757/2017 as the lead case and unless otherwise specified, all references to the parties and documents in this judgment will be as arrayed and shown in the said writ appeal.

(3.) The common cause shown by the various party respondents in the appeals and original petitions and the appellants in W.A.No.1865/2017, who will hereafter be referred collectively as petitioners/applicants for convenience, is against the alleged selective extension of the rank lists prepared by the PSC, to the various posts in various services in Government of Kerala, through its order, which was called into question by them before the learned Single Judge and the learned Tribunal, while denying such benefits to the rank lists in which they are included. The rank lists in which the various petitioners/applicants are included, all came into effect some time in the year 2013 and were all normally to expire in the year 2016. We notice that except in three cases, namely O.P. (CAT) Nos.335/2017, 367/2017 and 403/2017, the rank lists expired after June 2016. As regards the rank lists in aforementioned three original petitions are concerned, it expired prior to June 2016, but admittedly were extended by the PSC for a further period of six months thereafter. In effect, therefore, all the rank lists involved in these cases, save an exception in the case of W.A.No.1865/2017, to which we will advert later, expired some time during the period from 01.06.2016 to 30.12.2016.