NITIKA GARG Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB AND OTHERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Petitioner has prayed for a direction to the respondents to consider her for appointment as Social Studies Mistress on the ground of having higher merit than the last selected candidate.

(2.) In brief, the facts as pleaded in the petition are that vide advertisement dated 2.10.2006. the Department of School Education, Punjab invited applications for recruitment of regular school teachers in various disciplines and categories. The petitioner, who is M.Com/B.Ed. applied for the post of Mistress in the subject of Social Studies as per advertisement dated 2.10.2006 (Annexure P-1) in which both qualifications and mode of selection were provided, which is reproduced as under :

(3.) The form of the petitioner was duly received in the office of respondent No. 2 on 31.10.2006 and was scrutinized in the office of respondent No. 3. The petitioner had appeared in the office of respondent No. 3 on 15.11.2006 for interview and produced all her original certificates. The petitioner had secured 71.8% in B.Ed. However. When the result was declared on 26.11.2006 in the Daily newspaper "The Tribune" the name of the petitioner was conspicuously absent. The petitioner when learnt that the candidates lower in merit had been selected while she has been ignored, not only she approached the respondents to consider her name vide E mail dated 29.11.2006 but had also served a legal notice dated 15.1.2007. Subsequently, the State of Punjab issued a fresh advertisement dated 29.9.2007 in which the last selected candidate of Social Studies Mistress was having 73.375%. There was a note in the subsequent advertisement that the candidates who are having more marks, they should appear before the Local Office in Punjab University, Chandigarh. The petitioner had appeared before the Local Office and her form was again scrutinized where respondent No. 3 himself calculated the percentage of petitioner as 73.80%. In spite of the same the petitioner was not considered for appointment and was rejected.