BHAWNA Vs. STATE OF HARYANA AND ANOTHER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS order shall dispose of CWP No. 7603 of 2013 titled as Bhawna v. State of Haryana and another and CWP No. 7498 of 2013 titled as Manoj Bhardwaj v. H.P.S.C. and another as identical issue is involved in both the writ petitions. Facts, however, are being noticed from CWP No. 7603 of 2013. The challenge in these writ petitions is to the criteria of shortlisting adopted by the Haryana Public Service Commission (hereinafter to be referred to as the Commission) for selection to the post of Assistant Director (Technical)/Principal, I.T.I. Group A Junior in the Industrial Training Department, Haryana. The Commission issued advertisement dated 19.10.2012, whereby amongst other posts, 17 posts of Assistant Director (Technical)/Principal, I.T.I. Group A Junior in the Industrial Training Department, Haryana were also advertised. The essential qualifications prescribed for the post were in the following terms: - -

(2.) IT has been pleaded that the petitioner was eligible for the post as she possessed the essential qualifications prescribed and had submitted the application form within the stipulated time frame. On 25.3.2013 the respondent -Commission issued a notice informing the candidates as regards a decision having been taken on account of the large number of applications having been received, to resort to a process of shortlisting in the respective categories for calling such short listed candidates for interview. In the notice the Commission informed the candidates that shortlisting was being done on the basis of percentage of marks obtained in the advertised essential academic qualifications. Accordingly, the minimum cut off percentage in essential academic qualifications for each category was fixed as under: - -

(3.) LEARNED counsel appearing for the petitioner has vehemently argued that the criteria adopted by the Commission for shortlisting the candidates to appear in the interview for the post in question in the light of impugned notice dated 25.3.2013 (Annexure P -6) is wholly arbitrary. It has been argued that in terms of such shortlisting procedure against the 17 posts advertised only 117 candidates would be called for the interview as against 340 eligible candidates who had applied. Counsel would submit that seven times of the candidates in relation to the total posts advertised are being called, whereas in relation to the post of Assistant District Attorney for which also the Commission is presently holding interviews, against 136 posts about 2300 candidates have been called which is almost 17 times the total number of posts advertised. The case set up on behalf of the petitioner is that the Commission should have adopted a uniform yardstick and if in the case of the post of Assistant Director/Principal, I.T.I. Group A Junior seventeen times candidates in relation to the number of posts advertised had been called, then, the petitioner would not have been denied the right for consideration and appointment. It has further been argued that the selection criteria cannot be changed by the Commission after the selection process has been initiated. In support of such contention reliance has been placed upon the judgements of Hon'ble Apex Court in cases of K. Manjusree v. State of Andhra Pradesh, : 2008 (2) S.C.T. 6 : 2008 (3) S.C.C. 512 and Himani Malhotra v. High Court of Delhi, : 2008 (2) S.C.T. 736 : 2008 (3) Recent Apex Judgments (R.A.J.) 463 : 2008 (7) S.C.C. 11.