K JAGANNADHAM Vs. DISTRICT COLLECTOR KURNOOL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This is a petition under Article 220 of the Constitution asking for an appropriate Writ, order or direction to quash the order passed by the District Collector, Kuniool in his Ref. A. 6-24380/63 dated 4-2-1964. The brief facts lending up to this writ petition are as follows: The petitioner passed his S. S. L. C. Examination in the year 1955 with "Secretarial course" us his optional subject. "Secretarial course" consists of drafting, Precis-writing and Typewriting. After having passed the S.S.L.C. examination, the petitioner applied to the Public Service Commission for being admitted to the competitive examination held by it for selection of clerks, etc. The petitioner was duly permitted to sit for the examination which was held by the Public Service Commission in March 1959. He was successful in that examination, and his name was in due course included by the Service Commission in the approved list of candidates for appointment in the Kurnool District. On 12-1-1962, the petitioner received a communication from the Collector of Kuniool informing him that he and 10 others were approved as candidates for appointment, and that the petitioner was appointed as a typist on probation in the office of the Revenue Divisional Officer, Nandyal. The petitioner joined duty on 25-1-1962 at Nandyal. The probation was for a period of two years. He completed that period and was continuing as typist. But on 4-2-1964, the District Collector, kuniool at the instance of the Service Commission, passed an order purporting to cancel the petitioners selection as an approved candidate on the ground that he did not possess the requisite qualification in typewriting for being permitted to sit for the competitive examination held by the Public Service Commission in March 1959. On this ground the petitioner was discharged from service. It is this order that is now impugned by the petitioner.

(2.) The first respondent, who is the District Collector, Kurnool, has not filed any counter but the second respondent who is the Secretary, Public Service Commission, Andhra Pradesh, has filed a counter affidavit justifying the impugned order. He says that the petitioner was only provisionally permitted to sit for the competitive examination and that his selection as an approved candidate for appointment as a typist was also provisional. He clarifies this by stating that the petitioners inclusion in the approved list was subject to his producing the original documents of which he had already furnished true copies. After the originals were produced by the petitioner, enquiries were made by the Secretary, Public Service Commission and it was ascertained from the Commissioner of Board of Secondary Education that the petitioner had obtained only 44 per cent in Typewriting in the S. S. L. C. Examination. Only a person who had secured 45 per cent of the marks in typewriting was eligible to sit for the competitive examination held by the Service Commission in March 1959. As the petitioner was eventually found not to have obtained this requisite number of marks, he was not entitled to be retained in service and the Collector was therefore justified in discharging him from service by the impugned order.

(3.) It is well to state at this stage that it in not the case of the respondents that the petitioner was guilty of any fraud, misrepresentation, suppression of facts, or lack of bona fides. He did not at any lime state or give the impression to the Collector or the Public Service Commission that he had obtained 45 per cent in the typewriting examination. Indeed, it appears that at the relevant time he himself was not aware of the number of marks he had obtained in that subject. His S. S. L. C. register did not separately slate the marks obtained in Typewriting. It treated "Secretarial course" as a single subject and showed that the petitioner had obtained 40 per cent in it. It was a true copy of this register that the petitioner furnished to the Public Service Commission at the time of his application for admission to the competitive examination held by the Service Commission in March 1959. It was on the basis of this data that he was permitted by the Service Commission to sit for the competitive examination. He passed in that examination. Thereafter his name was included in the list of "approved candidates" and be was allotted for appointment as a typist to the region of the District Collector of Kuniool. Now, the Secretary, Public Service Commission (second respondent) says that the petitioner was only permitted provisionally to write the competitive examination. But the petitioner was admittedly not informed of the alleged provisional nature of the permission. On the other hand, he appears to nave been kept totally in the dark about it. Furthermore, there does not appear to be any rule which authorises the Secretary, Public Service Commission to accord such provisional permission to appear for the competitive examination, and if the permission originally accorded was only provisional as the second respondent would have it, one would reasonably expect the petitioners results to have been withheld and his name not to have been included in the list of successful candidates, until it was verified by the Public Service Commission as to whether be had obtained the requisite number of marks to render him eligible to sit for the examination. This obvious course was not adopted.