REMANI C Vs. K P S C

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner was an applicant to the post of Higher Secondary School Teacher (Senior), pursuant to the notification issued by the Public Service Commission. The petitioner became successful and has been included as rank No. 79 OBC in the main list. She belongs to Vaniyan community. Respondents 3 and 4 herein are rank Nos. 7 and 8 in the supplementary list for Ezhava.

(2.) The challenge made by the petitioner is against the advice made by the Public Service Commission in respect of turn 60 N by granting a turn passed over benefit to Ezhava community. It is submitted that the said turn which was originally allotted to Nadar community, has to be allotted to an O.B.C. candidate and the petitioner being the next eligible candidate, ought to have been advised. The present selection is the first one made after the publication of the Special Rules. Initially, 57 vacancies of HSST (Sociology) were reported. After the publication of the rank list, 8 more vacancies were reported. There was an earlier writ petition which was ultimately disposed of by a learned Single Judge of this Court on 28/05/2007, whereby six vacancies were directed to be filled up by the candidates included in the rank list. Ext. P3 is the judgment in WA No. 1714/2007 and connected cases, wherein ultimately the Division Bench held that two more vacancies were available for direct recruitment to be filled up from 12 vacancies reported during the pendency of the original petition. Thus, altogether 73 vacancies and two NJD vacancies were reported for advising and appointing candidates from the list Ext. P1. It is at this stage the petitioner has filed this writ petition on coming to know that rank No. 66 in the main list and rank No. 8 in the supplementary list are likely to be appointed against the reservation turn. It is the contention that the advice and appointment of the 4th respondent will be in excess of the reservation turns available for Ezhavas. It is pointed out that the turn available for OBC to which the petitioner ought to have been advised, has been illegally filled up by advising an Ezhava candidate.

(3.) The dispute herein is connected with the claim for reservation between Hindu Nadars and SIUC Nadars. Originally, item 23 in List III of Part I of KS & SSR was 'Hindu Nadar'. Item 64 was SIUC. In 1979, the Government made an amendment to bring Hindu Nadars and SIUC into one class for the purpose of reservation. Challenge against this was considered by a Division Bench in Hindu Nadar Corporation v. State of Kerala, 2000 KHC 710 : 2000 (3) KLT 740 : ILR 2000 (3) Ker. 810, this Court declared that Hindu - Nadars should continue to be treated as separate category for the purpose of Art.16(4) of the Constitution of India and accordingly directed that they will continue as item No. 49 and Nadars converted to SIUC would come within item 64 in List III in Part I of KS & SSR.