KESHAB CHANDRA DAS Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) BOTH the petitioners in W.P. (C) No. 4242 of 2007 were applicants before the Central Administrative Tribunal, Cuttack Bench in O.A. No. 1173 of 2004. The said Original Application having been dismissed by the Tribunal by order dated 7.7.2006, they have approached this Court challenging the same. The Railway administration has also challenged the operating part of the said judgment in W.P.(C) No. 16151 of 2006.

(2.) BOTH the applicants who are Diploma Holder in Civil Engineering in pursuance of an advertisement issued by the Railway Recruitment Board (RRB), Bhubaneswar, applied for being appointed as I.O.W. Grade -III and having been selected for the post, they joined in the year 1994. A notification was issued on 5.3.2001 for formation of Group -B panel for the post of AEN (Group -B) through a process of limited Departmental Competitive Examination against 34 vacancies of the Civil Engineering Department. Those who had completed five years of regular service in the scale of Rs. 5000 -8000/ - as on 1.11.2000 in the Civil Engineering Department were eligible to be included in the panel. There were 28 vacancies out of which 20 were unreserved, 5 were reserved for Scheduled Caste and 3 were reserved for Scheduled Tribe candidates. Both the applicants were in the scale of Rs. 5000 -8000/ - and accordingly they appeared in the written test. In the written test, 9 candidates were declared qualified who were subsequently called for viva voce test and all the 9 of them were selected in order of merit. The dispute arose so far as selection of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe candidates are concerned. It was claimed that a pre -selection coaching had not been extended to the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe candidates as a consequence of which some of the aggrieved persons moved the Jabalpur Bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal questioning the validity of the said panel. During pendency of the case before the Jabalpur Bench of the Tribunal, the Railway Board accepted the claim and approved for holding a supplementary written test after giving them pre -selection coaching. In the supplementary test, 42 eligible candidates were allowed to participate out of whom 33 including both the applicants appeared. 13 candidates including both the applicants were declared qualified in the written test and they were called for a viva voce test. The names of both the applicants did not figure in the final select list though they claimed to have done much better than other candidates. A panel of 17 qualified candidates was prepared taking into account 9 candidates who were selected earlier. Out of the 17 candidates selected, 8 belong to the general category, 8 belong to the Schedule Caste community and one to the Scheduled Tribe community. As stated earlier, out of 28 vacancies, 5 have been reserved for Scheduled Caste and 3 for Scheduled Tribe but all the 8 Scheduled Caste candidates secured more marks than the last candidate belonging to the general category and thus they were included against the general category and the 5 posts reserved for Scheduled Caste remained unaffected. According to the applicants, since those 5 posts were available to be filled up, they could have been given appointment against the reserved quota. According to them, the applicant No. 1 had secured 23 marks and the applicant No. 2, 18 marks out of 25 marks allotted for A.C.Rs. and consequently they ran short of few marks in the viva voce test resulting in their non -selection.

(3.) A reply to the counter affidavit was filed by the applicants before the Tribunal reiterating that 5 posts meant for Scheduled Caste candidates could not be filled up as all the 8 Scheduled Caste candidates selected were accommodated against the general category and therefore, there was no reason on the part of the Railways in not selecting both the applicants against the 5 posts meant for Scheduled Caste candidates.