AMIT KUMAR AZAD Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This writ application relates to recruitment for the post of Special Survey Assistant Settlement Officer on the basis of Advertisement No. 3 of 2019 issued on 04.03.2019 by the Directorate, Land Records and Survey. The petitioner has put to challenge Clause 3(ii) of the said advertisement, which provides for 50% of horizontal reservation for civil engineering graduates having passed out from the Government Engineering Colleges of the Bihar, for the purposes of said recruitment process. The recruitment is indisputably governed by the Bihar Special Survey Honorarium Based Contractual Appointment Rules, 2019 (hereinafter referred to as 'the Rules'), framed by the State Government of Bihar under Article 309 of the Constitution of India and the Bihar Survey and Settlement Act, 2011.

(2.) The challenge to the said stipulation under Clause 3(ii) of the advertisement rests on the plain reasoning that there being no provision for such reservation under the rules, which have statutory character, it could not have been incorporated in the advertisement. Rule 5 of the rules provides for reservation in the matter of selection/appointment to the posts to the effect that the provisions of reservation in service and posts (including horizontal reservation) issued by the General Administration Department, Government of Bihar, shall be applicable in the appointments of Special Survey Assistant Settlement Officer.

(3.) It is the petitioner's case that there is no such instruction/guidelines or decision of the General Administration Department providing horizontal reservation for the engineering graduates, who have passed out from the Government Engineering Colleges. The petitioner is an applicant to the post against the said advertisement and belongs to B.C. category. He is said to have passed civil engineering graduation examination from a privately managed engineering college.