STATE OF PUNJAB AND ANOTHER Vs. NARESH KUMARI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Vide advertisement dated 23.9.2009, appellant No.2 i.e. Director Public Instructions (Secondary Education), Punjab advertised 7654 posts in the teaching/non-teaching cadre in Education Department, which included 78 posts of Vocational Masters/Mistresses in Computer Science. Out of those 78 posts, eight were reserved for Scheduled Castes (R&O) category. The respondent, being a member of Scheduled Castes (R&O), also applied for one such post. In the first list of successful candidates, released by the appellants, respondent's name figured at serial No. 40 and she was shown to have secured 50.1429 marks. Vide public notice dated 9.7.2010, the candidates were again called for counselling/scrutiny and a revised merit list was issued in February, 2011. However, the respondent's name did not figure in that revised list. Therefore, vide public notice dated 29.6.2011, appellant No.2 again called the candidates for filling up vacant posts. In view thereof, the respondent along with other candidates again attended the counselling on 10.7.2011 but no post was offered to her. Having come to know that some posts were still lying vacant as candidates higher in merit than the respondent were either absent during counselling or did not join despite having been selected. Respondent, accordingly, sought information from the Director, SCERT, Punjab with regard to availability of vacancies. Vide letter dated 24.8.2012 (Annexure P9), respondent was informed that out of eight posts, five had been filled and three were still vacant. The petitioner, accordingly, made a representation dated 25.8.2012 (Annexure P10) requesting the appellants to consider her case against one of the available vacancies. On representation having remained unresponded to, the respondent preferred Civil Writ Petition No. 17696 of 2012, which was disposed of by this Court vide order dated 10.9.2012 (Annexure P11) directing the respondents therein (appellants herein) to take a final decision on the representation dated 25.8.2012 (Annexure P10) by passing a speaking order. The second appellant, vide letter dated 9.9.2013 (Annexure P12), however, rejected the representation of the respondent by observing as under:-

(2.) To challenge order dated 9.9.2013, the respondent preferred Civil Writ Petition No. 21090 of 2013 which, after contest, has been allowed by the learned Single Judge vide judgment dated 10.11.2014.

(3.) The appeal is barred by limitation and there is an application for condonation of delay of 283 days in filing the appeal. After going through the contents of the application for condonation of delay and hearing the learned counsel for the appellants, though we find no sufficient ground to condone the delay, yet we have heard learned counsel for the appellants on merits.