DEBAJANI CHOUDHURY Vs. STATE OF ASSAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This judgment and order of ours will dispose of writ appeal Nos. 296, 297, 298 and 299 of 2001, as well as writ petition (Civil) Nos. 141, 190 and 286 of 2001. As to how we seized of the writ petitions itself will be indicated hereinafter.

(2.) The Assam Public Service Commission (APSC) issued an advertisement, which was published in the Assam Tribune in its issue dated 28.9.1998 notifying its intention to hold a preliminary examination of the combined competitive examination, 1998 for screening candidates for the main examination for recruitment to the Assam Civil Service-I Junior Grade, Assam Police Service Junior Grade, Labour Officer, Superintendent of Taxes etc. It may be observed here that the aforesaid advertisement stated that the actual number of vacancies against each service/ posts would be notified in due course as and when received from the government. A copy of the advertisement has been appended as Annexure-I to the writ petition. We may observe here that the recruitment to the post is governed by the statutory rules known as the Assam Civil Service (Class-I) Rules, 1960. The Rules in terms provide for holding a competitive examination. There is a preliminary examination and whosoever qualifies in the preliminary examination, he is required to pass the main examination and depending upon the vacancies, the candidates qualified in the main examination are called for viva voce. The marks allotted for the written examination and viva voce are 1400 and 200 respectively. It may further be stated here that there is no requirement under any rules/regulations for obtaining a particular minimum marks in a particular subject for qualifying in the main written examination nor there is any requirement for securing minimum particular marks in the viva voce. In all there are 4 (four) subjects in the written examination. The compulsory papers are General Studies and English of 300 marks each whereas there are two optional subjects. Each optional subject is of two papers of 200 marks each. So far as general category candidates are concerned such candidates were required to obtain minimum of 40% marks in the aggregate for being called for viva voce and 30% for the reserved category candidates. In other words, minimum of 560 and 420 marks respectively were required to be secured by general category/reserved category candidates in the aggregate of the written examination.

(3.) Four petitioners filed the writ petition in this court alleging that they had duly qualified in the written examination and were called for the viva voce. They had done extremely well in the written examination as well as in the viva voce, yet in the final selection list that was published, their names did not occur. In fact, according to the writ petitioners, many irregularities had been committed by the Commission in giving marks to the answer scripts of the written examination as well as viva voce and some relations of the members of the Commission had been selected due to favoritism. Out of the candidates appeared in the written examination and viva voce 89 candidates including the reserved categories were selected for various posts. A detailed reference to the averments in the writ petition would be made hereinafter. When the writ petitions had come up before the learned Single Judge, some interim orders were passed 01/10.1.2001, 13.3.2001, 22.3.2001, 3.42001,17.5.2001,21.6.2001,24.7.2001 and 10.8.2001 each are reproduced here for ready reference.