ASHWANI KUMAR Vs. STATE AND OTHERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Petitioners seek consideration for appointment to the post of Foresters in Jammu division in the reserved category of "Resident of Backward Areas" (ROBA) and all that falls to be considered is:

(2.) Petitioner responded to advertisement notice No. 4 of 1992 issued by respondent No. 2 inviting, amongst others, applications for the post of Forester in Jammu Division. They come from village Goason in Akhnoor tehsil which stands admittedly declared as a backward area. After they had submitted their applications, SRO-126 of 1994 dated 28.6.1994 was brought into force providing reservations for appointment by direct recruitment in each service, class, category and grade in favour of permanent residents of the State belonging to any of the categories mentioned in rule 10 of the Rules. One of the categories mentioned therein is "Residents of Backward Areas" for which reservation to the extent of 20 per cent of the available vacancies has been provided.

(3.) Prompted by this, the petitioners moved respondent No. 2 and sought consideration under the ROBA category. After they failed to elicit favourable response from the Board functionaries they filed this petition seeking a direction to respondent No. 2 to finalise the select list for appointment to the posts of Forester after granting them consideration under the ROBA category and for restraining the Board from finalising any select list without acting upon the Reservation Rules of 1994. It appears that in the objections filed by the respondents to this petition it was disclosed that SRO-126 of 1994 had been subsequently amended by SRO-255 of 1994 dated 28.11.1994 clarifying that the Reservation Rules of 1994 would not apply to such vacancies or the posts in respect of which the advertisement notice had been issued or selection process initiated by the selection authority before coming into force of these rules. Upon this, petitioner sought amendment of the writ petition to challenge SRO-255 of 1994 which was allowed. In the amended writ petition they now seek quashment of this SRO besides the reliefs sought by them in the original petition.