MANOJ KUMAR Vs. STATE OF J&K

JUDGEMENT

(1.) All these four petitions arise out of selection made by respondent No.2 for the posts of Assistant Tourist Officers pursuant to Advertisement Notification No.03 of 2012 dtd. 28/12/2012.

(2.) SWP No. 703/2016 is the first writ petition filed by the petitioner-Manoj Kumar challenging the selection criteria framed by the J&K Service Selection Board for making selection to the post in question on the ground that the respondent-Board had not given any weightage to the higher/additional qualification. This petition was filed at the time when the respondent-Board after receiving the application forms, published selection criteria vide its Notification published in the "Daily Excelsior" newspaper in its issue dated 09th of September, 2015. While the aforesaid petition was pending, and the respondent-board framed the shortlist of all the eligible candidates to be invited for interview, the petitioner filed another writ petition, i.e., SWP No. 1572/2017 in which the petitioner assailed the eligibility of four candidates arrayed as respondents 6 to 9 in the petition, to participate in the further process of selection. This Court while entertaining the aforesaid writ petition vide its order dtd. 28/6/2017 provided that the respondent-board would consider only such candidates for the post of Assistant Tourist Officer, who fulfill the eligibility conditions as laid down in the Advertisement Notification. The process proceeded and ultimately culminated into the issuance of the select list. This made the petitioner Manoj Kumar to file third writ petition, in which the petitioner specifically challenged the selection of respondent No.6-Basharat Hussain and respondent No.7 Amar Maqbool as Assistant Tourist Officers on the ground that both the aforesaid candidates lacked the eligibility prescribed in the Advertisement Notification. Similarly, another petition, which is clubbed with this batch is SWP No. 3012/2017 filed by one Amar Maqbool in which the selection of Basharat Hussain has been called in question.

(3.) From the above, it is clear that the reliefs claimed by the petitioner-Manoj Kumar in SWP No. 703/2016 and SWP No. 1572/2017 have merged with the reliefs claimed in SWP No. 2467/2017. That being so, the decision in SWP No.2467/2017 and SWP No. 3012/2017 would dispose of all the petitions and the controversy raised therein. It is because of this reason, all the petitions, which are clubbed together are being decided by this common judgment.