MASTAN RAO Vs. SUPERINTENDENT EXCISE DEPT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) A common question arises in this batch of writ petitions. It would be sufficient if I state the facts in the first of the writ petitions, i.e., W.P. No. 11535/83.

(2.) The Divisional Manager, A.P. State Road Transport Corporation, Kurnool, notified to the |District Employment Exchange, Kurnool, certain vacancies in the category of Conductors. The District Employment Officer, accordingly, forwarded certain names. Though the petitioners were also registered with the Employment Exchange, Kurnool, their names were not forwarded, obviously because there were many persons registered far earlier to them, and the petitioners' turn had not yet arrived. The petitioners applied to the Divisional Manager, A.P. State Road Transport Corporation, Kurnool, directly, to call them for interview and to consider their cases for appointment as Conductors. This was refused by the Divisional Manager on the ground that their names have not been sponsored/by the Employment Exchange. This refusal of the Divisional Manager is challenged in these writ petitions as illegal and violative of the equal opportunity clause enshrined in Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India. Reliance is mainly placed upon the decision of a learned Single Judge of this Court, in Sankara Reddy vs. A.P.S.E. Board.

(3.) The Divisional Manager (respondent in the writ petition) has not issued or published any notification or advertisement inviting applications for the said posts. He has merely notified the concerned Employment Exchange of the said vacancies, and proposed to consider only those persons who are sponsored by the Employment Exchange. The question is, whether the petitioners have a rightwhether flowing from Articles 14 and 16, or otherwiseto compel the respondent, Divisional Manager, to call them also for interview and to consider their cases for appointment to the said posts, in the above circumstances.