VINOD KUMAR BURMAN Vs. UTTARAKHAND PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION

JUDGEMENT

(1.) HEARD learned counsel for the parties and perused the entire mate rial available on the record.

(2.) BRIEF facts, which emerge out from the record, are that the respond ent no. 1 Uttarakhand Public Service Commission issued an advertisement no. A-7/E-1/07-08 whereby 33 vacan cies of Civil Judge (Junior Division) were notified. Out of these 33 vacancies, 5 were reserved for candidates belonging to Scheduled Caste Category who are residents of Uttarakhand State. It was provided in the advertise ment that horizontal reservation shall be applicable as per relevant Govern ment Orders. Since the petitioner pos sessed all eligibility conditions as indi cated in the advertisement, he applied for the post of Civil Judge (Jr. Div.) claiming benefit of reservation as Scheduled Caste Category candidate. The petitioner appeared in the prelimi nary examination and thereafter in main examination as well as in inter view. The result thereof was declared on 02-10-2008 but the name of the petitioner was not placed in the select list. Since the petitioner was confident in getting selected in the examination, he was surprised to find that he was not selected. As such, the petitioner made an application to respondent no. 1 requesting to disclose the marks scored by him. The petitioner was in formed vide office memorandum dated 07-10-2008 that he scored 458 marks out of 850 in written examination and 71 marks out of 100 in interview, thus 529 marks out of 950 aggregate. Thereafter, the petitioner made an ap plication under Right to Information Act to respondent no. 1 requesting to disclose the marks scored by respond ent nos. 4, 6 and 7 but the respondent no. 1 did not furnish information as sought by the petitioner. The peti tioner, thereafter unofficially enquired about the marks scored by respondent nos. 4, 6 and 7 in the aforesaid exami nation and it was revealed that all of them had scored much lesser marks than the petitioner. The petitioner scored 529 marks whereas respondent nos. 4, 6 and 7 scored 489, 489 and 483 marks respectively. In spite of the fact that the petitioner scored higher marks, he was not selected.

(3.) MR. B.D. Kandpal, learned counsel for respondent no. 1 submit ted that horizontal reservation was counted against the total vacancies and was not counted category-wise separately. According to MR. Kandpal, against the total 33 posts, the horizon tal reservation for Uttarakhand women came to 10 posts and against the said 10 posts, only 3 candidates of Uttarakhand women category were fi nally selected. All of them are Sched uled Caste Category, as such, against the 5 Scheduled Caste reserved posts, these three Scheduled Caste Uttarakhand women candidates have been adjusted in Scheduled Caste Cat egory in accordance to their merit. Ac cording to him the respondent no. 1 has not committed any illegality in se lecting 3 women candidates under Scheduled Caste reserved category by counting and applying 30% against a total of 33 vacancies. In support of his argument MR. B.D. Kandpal has placed reliance on paragraph-95 of the judgment of the Supreme Court in Indra Sawhney us. Union pf India re ported in AIR 1993 Supreme Court-477. The same is quoted as below : "95. We are also of the opinion that this rule of 50% applies only to reservations in favour of back ward classes made under Article 16(4). A little clarification, is in or der at this juncture : all reservations are not of the same nature. There are two types of reservations, which may, for the sake of conven ience, be referred to as, vertical reservations' and horizontal reservation'. The reservations in favour of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other backward classes (under Article 16(4) may be called vertical reservations whereas reser vations in favour of physically handicapped (under clause (1) of Article 16) can be referred to as horizontal reservations. Horizontal reservations cut across the vertical reservations-what is called inter locking reservations. To be more precise, suppose 3% of the vacan cies are reserved in favour of physically handicapped persons, this would be a reservation relat-able to clause (1) of Article 16. The persons selected against this quota will be placed in the appropriate category; if he belongs to S.C. cat egory he will be placed in that quota by making necessary adjust ments; similarly, if he belongs to open competition (O.C.) category, he will be placed in that category by making necessary adjustments. Even after providing for these horizontal reservations, the percentage of reservations in favour of back ward class of citizens remains- and should remain- the same. This is how these reservations are worked out in several States and there is no reason not to continue that pro cedure. It is, however, made clear that the rule of 50% shall be applicable only to reservations proper, they shall not be-indeed cannot be ap plicable to exemptions, concessions or relaxations, if any, provided to 'Backward Class of Citizens under Article 16(4)"