UMADUTT SHARMA Vs. STATE OF HIMACHAL PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Notice. Ms. Ritta Goswami, learned Additional Advocate General, appears and accepts service of notice on behalf of the respondents.

(2.) This Letters Patent Appeal has been filed by the appellants against the impugned judgment dtd. 27/10/2021 passed by the learned Single Judge in CWP No.3146/2021. The said writ petition filed by the nine petitioners has been dismissed. The appellants/petitioners were aggrieved by the result of an outdoor test declared vide Annexure P-13, wherein they were shown 'failed' in the said test.

(3.) The allegation of the appellants/petitioners is that the outdoor test was conducted contrary to the instructions contained in the standing order No.11/16. The appellants/petitioners also challenged the final list Annexure P- 10 and prayed for the quashment of the same. They also prayed for a direction to the officials-respondents to declare the appellants/petitioners eligible for lower school course 2021 in parity to the petitioners in CWPOA No.40671/2020 (correct no is CWPOA No.4170/2020). The appellants/petitioners have raised the same arguments, which were raised by the petitioners in CWPOA No.4170/2020. In fact, the aforesaid CWPOA No.4170/2020 was originally filed before the erstwhile H.P. Administrative Tribunal as CWPOA No.1610/2018 jointly by 18 petitioners. The appellants/petitioners in the present case were originally co-petitioners with the petitioners in CWPOA No.4170/2020. Upon being so advised, petitioners No. 1 to 11, 17 and 18 in their CWPOA were vide order dtd. 14/12/2020 granted permission by the Court to withdraw from the writ petition with liberty to approach the Director General of Police Himachal Pradesh for redressal of their grievances by filing representation, to be decided in view of the order of the Administrative Tribunal passed in CWPOA No.1035/1993 titled as Raj Kumar Vs. State of H.P. This Court thus vide order dtd. 14/12/2020 disposed of CWPOA No.4170/2020 qua the petitioners No. 1 to 11, 17 and 18. Subsequently, however, CWPOA No.4170/2020 was allowed by the learned Single Judge qua remaining petitioners by observing that on perusal of the original marksheet of outdoor test which were allotted by the Chairman and other members to the candidates including the petitioners, had lot of cuttings and interpolations for which there was no satisfactory explanation. Even in the case of some of the petitioners, there were cuttings/interpolations in the marks, which were granted to them in the written test. With that conclusion having been arrived at, the learned Single Judge allowed the writ petition in respect of the remaining petitioners No.12 to 16 in CWPOA No.4170/2020 with the following findings:-