(1.) Public Advertisement No. 1 of October, 2006 was issued in the Press calling applications eligible candidates to fill 431 posts of Headmasters in the Education Department, Government of Punjab. Of that number 21 posts were reserved for the Backward Class (Female) reserved category against which the petitioner applied within time frame and in due course of the selection process she secured to her credit 61.715 marks on the basis of credit marks assigned for academic and professional qualifications calculated as per the criteria laid down. The first round of counselling was conducted on 3rd November 2006 followed by a second one in the same month. She participated in the counseling process. Later, she was informed that she had failed to make the grade while the 4 posts remaining in her reserved category had been filled up by the successful candidates. It is the say of the petitioner that the appointments were offered to the successful candidates in the year 2008 and they joined service which was offered. It is stated that the selection was challenged by unsuccessful candidates as had competed for the posts advertised in the Physical Training Instructor category in 2008 and then again by a fresh wave of unsuccessful candidates approaching this Court in writ petitions filed in 2012. Apart from those, in 2013 some persons/other candidates filed CWP No. 18679 of 2013 before this court in which serious allegations are levelled against the Chairman of the Selection Committee for using unfair and corrupt means in making appointments of ineligible and undeserving candidates. An FIR has also been registered by the police in this regard and this Court is presently seized of those proceedings which are pending adjudication.
(2.) The story built by the petitioner to cover the delay in approaching court is that in March, 2014, the petitioner all of a sudden had received a telephone call from the office of the first respondent enquiring from the petitioner why she had not joined duty despite selection in the second counselling process and consequential appointments offered in 2007-08 to others. On this premise her hope was rekindled. She probed further in the matter with the official respondents to elicit information from them as to the status of her case but was not provided any information.
(3.) Admittedly, the petitioner made no grouse of her non-selection for all these years nor did she express any grievance in writing to the respondents demanding justice after the appointments were offered to the selected candidates during 2007-2008. She was not also a party to any of the earlier court proceedings and today depends on the litigation filed by Physical Training Instructors and in another petition bearing CWP No. 18679 of 2013 where as noticed above allegations of corruption have been levelled against the Chairman of the Selection Committee in making the selection in which the petitioner participated.