TITIL DATTA SAMANTA Vs. STATE OF WEST BENGAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE writ petitioner has filed this application praying for the following reliefs:-

(2.) THE writ petitioner appeared in the National Eligibility Test conducted by the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research University Grant Commission and on July 12, 2001 he was declared successful as being eligible for "Lectureship NET ". On April 27, 2009, the petitioner obtained a Ph.D. degree and then on June 16, 2009, he appeared for interview conducted by the College Service Commission for college under the Burdwan Zone in the year 2009 for the post of Lecturer in Chemistry. Upon the publication of the result of the interview, the petitioner applied for information under the Right to Information Act, 2005 on July 18, 2012 and he got the information that while the petitioner got 63.27 marks out of 100, the last empanelled candidate in the General Category obtained 64.45 marks out of the 100 marks. 4 The petitioner has contended that the respondent authority has acted in illegal manner and as such, the petitioner has become unsuccessful for being appointed despite having requisite marks. The marks to be allotted on the Ph.D. degree had not been allotted to him and thus, he had been deprived of being appointed as a Lecturer. So, this writ application has been preferred. Now, the question is whether the respondent authority had acted illegally in not awarding 8 marks for the Ph.D. degree to the petitioner. Having heard the learned Counsel for the parties and on going through the materials on record, I find that there is no dispute that the petitioner had obtained Ph.D. degree before the date of holding the interview and that he had informed the respondent authority to consider the said Ph.D. degree in awarding marks to him.

(3.) IT is pertinent to mention here that the decision of Ashok Kumar Sharma & anr. (supra) was declared on December 18, 1992 and then a review petition was filed, which was disposed of subsequently and the said review decision had also been published in (1997) 4 SCC 18. The decision of Ashok Kumar Sharma & anr. 7 (supra) published in 1993 Supplementary (2) SCC 611 was considered, but the decision of Ashok Kumar Sharma (supra) published in (1997) 4 SCC 18 has been followed in Ashok Kumar Sonkar (supra) decided on February 23, 2007. Mr. Mondal has contended that since the petitioner had no degree on the last date of the submission of the applications, the concerned authority was justified in not awarding marks to the petitioner for his Ph.D. degree and so, the application should be dismissed. Mr. Jha has submitted in reply that in the instant case, the aforesaid two decisions cited by Mr. Mondal would not be applicable in view of the fact that, those decisions relate to qualifications for appointment. In the instant case, the applicant had the requisite qualification for being selected, but the question is whether he should get additional 8 marks for having the Ph.D. Certificate before the date of holding the interview. Thus, Mr. Jha has submitted that the decisions filed by Mr. Mondal would not be applicable in the instant case.