DEBADATTA SARANGI Vs. SECRETARY, ORISSA LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner in this writ application prays for a direction to the Opposite party No.1 to appoint him in the post of Library Attendant in the Orissa Legislative Assembly.

(2.) THE case of the petitioner is that he was working as a Seasonal employee in the Secretariat of Orissa Legislative Assembly and had 500 days of experience. In the year 1991 the Secretariat of Orissa Legislative Assembly requested the Bhubaneswar Employment Exchange to sponsor names of bona fide candidates to fill up newly created post of Library Attendant and the said post was treated as unreserved one. A Selection Committee was constituted to conduct interview and pursuant to the requisition made, the Bhubaneswar Employment Exchange sponsored twenty general category candidates. Apart from the above twenty candidates, three persons including the petitioner who had minimum 500 days of experience as seasonal Class IV employees were also nominated for the interview. Another peon Krushna Chandra Mohapatra working in the Legislative Assembly had also been nominated for interview. Out of the twenty four candidates including the petitioner fifteen turned up for the interview. The Selection Committee formed a scheme for allotting 15 marks towards career and 5 marks for personality. The 15 marks allotted for career depended on the division one has got in Matriculation which was treated as basic qualification for appointment. It was decided to award 15 marks for the candidate obtaining Ist Division, 10 marks obtaining IInd Division and 5 marks obtaining IIIrd Division. None of the candidates sponsored by the Employment Exchange who attended the interview had secured Ist Division or IInd Division in the Matriculation Examination. Out of the other nominated four candidates, the petitioner and one Purna Chandra Muduli had only obtained IInd Division in Matriculation and the other two had got IIIrd Division. Therefore, the petitioner and Purna Chandra Muduli obtained 10 marks each in career marking. In the personality test the petitioner was awarded highest marks by the Selection Committee and he stood first in the interview. The Selection Committee having found the petitioner in first position recommended his name for appointment as Library Attendant. After such recommendation, the petitioner was asked to furnish certain documents which were supplied by the petitioner. In spite of the formalities being complete, no appointment order was issued and after a considerable length of time elapsed, it was suddenly found that opposite party No.2 had been appointed on ad hoc basis treating the post as reserved one. The petitioner challenging the appointment order had filed this writ application on the ground that the Selection Committee having recommended his name for appointment against the post and the post being unreserved all through, the appointment order should be issued in his favour.

(3.) THE leaned counsel appearing for the petitioner challenges the action of the opposite party No.2. in reserving the post on the ground that since it was the Ist post in that calendar year, the same could not have been reserved and, therefore, at the beginning the Employment Exchange, Bhubaneswar had recommended twenty candidates belonging to the general category. The learned counsel further submitted that cancelling the recommendation of the Selection Committee and appointing a woman candidate in the post treating the same as reserved one only indicates mala fide. The learned counsel appearing for the Opposite party No.1, on the other hand, referring to the documents attached to the additional affidavit filed on 29.8.2001 submitted that the decision was taken by the Speaker and, therefore, the same was carried out. According to the learned counsel, since there was delay in acting upon the recommendation of the Selection Committee, the Speaker decided to appoint a woman against the post on temporary basis treating the same as reserved one.