STATE OF BIHAR Vs. PINKU KUMAR SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The State of Bihar as well as the Central Selection Board (Constable Recruitment), Bihar and some of their officials have preferred these three appeals under Clause 10 of Letters Patent of this Court to challenge the judgment and order of the writ court dated 19th February, 2011 whereby CWJC Nos. 14170 of 2010, 503 of 2011 and 512 of 2011 have been disposed of alongwith CWJC No. 14742 of 2010 and CWJC No. 504 of 2011.

(2.) Through the judgment and order under appeal, the writ court has interfered with the final result of selected candidates to a limited extent and has directed the respondents to redraw the final result separately on the basis of two Physical Evaluation Tests (PET) held at two stages. The writ court noticed that there was substantial compliance with all the statutory provisions and instructions in holding the written examination and calling the qualified candidates for PET-1, therefore, the result of all the successful candidates on the basis of PET-1 must be published and on that basis recommendations should be made for appointment against remaining available vacancies of different categories out of 5058 vacancies meant for Non Home Guard category of candidates. The writ court has further directed that for the 5052 vacancies meant for Home Guard category of candidates which have remained available after appointment of only 131 candidates of Home Guard category on the basis of PET-1, should be filled up from the candidates of respective categories available after PET- 2, for which the left over candidates of PET- 1 as well as the left over vacancies of PET- 1 shall also be taken into account for making appointment strictly as per respective category of the candidates and their ranking in the merit list of written test. The separate results have been directed to be drawn and finally published within one month from the date of the judgment and order.

(3.) The case of the appellants is that the writ court should have held that lowering down of qualifying marks for the written test was of no consequence because after the result of written test was published on 18-6-2010 by applying cut off marks as per 1991 Personnel and Administrative Reforms Department's Circular, it was found that only 19616 candidates out of 3.65 lacs, applicants have passed whereas out of 10,110 vacancies which were subject matter of advertisement No. 2 of 2009, 5052 were meant for the Home Guard category of candidates but only 389 applicants from this category passed the written test and only 131 of them qualified for the PET-1. According to learned counsel for the appellants, only 5676 candidates including 131 from the Home Guard category had cleared PET-1 and this was not sufficient to fill up the advertised vacancies of 10,110 and, therefore, tresh guidelines were issued by the State Government on 4.8.2010 to declare that provisions in the Bihar Police Act, 2007 for calling candidates for the Physical Evaluation Test, after holding of the written examination, in the ratio of 1:5 was mandatory and hence, the executive circulars of Personnel Department laying down cut off marks for various categories are not required to be followed in the matter of recruitment to the post of Constables. The guidelines clarified that the minimum eligibility marks were, therefore, relaxed and in that light candidates in each category (reserved category) be called in the ratio of 1:5. The guidelines directed for revising the result of the written examination simply on the basis of 1:5 ratio of the vacancies vis-a-vis the candidates required to be called for interview and to publish the result accordingly on the basis of PET-1 and to hold PET-2 so as to publish further final result within 30 days of the result published on the basis of PET-1. The guidelines, thus, directed for final results in two stages but with a stipulation that ultimately one merit list will be prepared of all the successful candidates for fixing their inter se seniority though they may have succeeded in two different stages. The guidelines further provided that 50% of the vacancies should be filled up with candidates belonging to the category of Home Guards but if such posts remained vacant due to non-availability of suitable candidates then the remaining vacancies of Home Guard category should be made available to open category. It was highlighted in the guidelines that for filling up the vacancies of Home Guard category candidates from each reserved category should also be called for in the proportion of 1: 5 for the Physical Evaluation Test.