HASEENA AKHTAR Vs. STATE OF JAMMU & KASHMIR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Respondent no.2, vide Advertisement Notice No.07 of 2010 dated 12th November 2010, invited applications for the post of General Line Teacher for various Districts including District of Pulwama. The category-wise breakup of the post was: OM - 79; SC - 12; ST - 14; RBA - 28; ALC - 04; and OSC - 02. The prescribed qualification for the post as indicated in the advertisement notification was as under:

(2.) Respondent Board, with a view to view to making the selection, adopted the following selection criteria:

(3.) Petitioner, being eligible as per the advertisement notification, submitted her application form for the notified post and claimed the benefit of Reserved Category of Other Social Caste (OSC). Amongst others, respondent no.5, namely, Bilal Ahmad Kumar, too had applied under OSC Category. The petitioner participated in the selection process. On the conclusion of the selection process, respondent no.2 initially issued Tentative Select List, in which petitioner figures at Serial no.01 in the Wait List of OSC Category, and Nelofar Jan and Wahid ud din Ahanger, were placed in Select List at Serial no.1&2 respectively under OSC Category. So far as respondent no.5 (Bilal Ahmad Kumar) is concerned, because of his higher merit, he was placed at Serial no.28 in the Select List of the Open Merit Category candidates. The placement of respondent no.5 in the Open Merit Category was primarily due to awarding of 02 points for the qualification of M. Phil, the said candidate had obtained from Singhania University. The aggrieved candidates filed their objections to the Tentative/ Provisional Select List and the same were considered by respondent no.2 on their merit. There was some dispute raised by some candidates with regard to the Degrees of M.Phil and M.Ed., obtained by some of the selected candidates from Singhania University, Rajasthan. A decision was taken by the respondent-Board to give weightage to M.Phil Degrees obtained from Singhania University through Regular Mode. But the Board also decided not to award any point for M.Ed obtained by the candidates from the aforesaid University on the ground that the University did not have the approval from the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE). The candidate, namely, Nelofar Jan, who was figuring at Serial no.01 in the Provisional Select List of OSC Category got ousted from the Provisional List because the marks/points awarded to her for her M.Ed. Degree from Singhania University were taken out. She, thus, fell short of requisite merit and, therefore, was ousted from the zone of selection. It further transpires that respondent no.5, who had made it to the Open Merit Select List because of having been awarded 02 points for the Degree obtained from Singhania University, was later on pushed out of the Merit List and was placed at Serial no.01 of the OSC Category List. This was done by subtracting two points from his overall merit, which he had obtained for his qualification of M.Phil from Singhania University. As a result, respondent no.5 replaced Nelofar Jan in the Final Select List of OSC category, followed by Wahid ud din Ahanger, who continued to be placed at Serial no.02 in the Select List of OSC Category.