AKASH RAZDAN Vs. STATE OF J & K

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners, who claim to be registered migrants with the Office of Relief and Rehabilitation Commissioner (Migrants), Jammu, have filed this petition to quash Order No.10-DMRRR of 2019 dtd. 6/3/2019 to the extent it operates retrospectively. The petitioners also challenge the communication of Deputy Secretary to Government, Department of DMRRR issued vide his No.DMRRR/MR/96/2019 dtd. 14/6/2019, whereby respondent No.4 has been requested to re-advertise the unfilled RBA Category posts against which no application forms have been received so that the candidates belonging to RBA Category can apply and get benefited under the Hon'ble Prime Minister's Employment Package issued for facilitating the return and rehabilitation of kashmiri migrants.

(2.) Precisely stating the facts leading to the filing of this petition, as projected by the petitioners in this petition, are that respondent No.4 issued Advertisement Notification No.SSBI/Sel/Secy/2017/12620-30 dtd. 28/11/2017 inviting applications for filling up supernumerary posts created under the Hon'ble Prime Minister Package for Kashmiri Migrants for different district cadre and divisional cadre posts. The posts notified included the posts of Junior Engineer (Mechanical), Junior Engineer (Electrical) and Statistical Assistant as well. As is apparent from advertisement notification, the total posts notified for selection were 1140. The petitioners claim that they being eligible applied online for the aforementioned posts. They participated in the selection under the general category but could not make it to the select list. The petitioners submit that as against 70 posts of Statistical Assistant, only 41 candidates were selected. Similarly, in the case of Junior Engineer (Mechanical), 15 were selected as against 27 posts and for Junior Engineer Electrical, 28 were selected against 50 posts advertised. All the candidates selected for the aforesaid posts were the general category candidates. The posts earmarked for reserved categories remained unfilled due to non-availability of the candidates. With a view to filling up the posts that remained unfilled due to non-availability of candidates belonging to reserved categories, the matter was taken to the State Administrative Council (SAC) and pursuant to the decision taken by the SAC, respondent No.1 issued Government Order No.10-DMRRR of 2019 dtd. 6/3/2019, whereby unfilled reserved category posts belonging to SC, ST, OSC and ALC referred to the recruiting agency under Prime Minister's Package for return and rehabilitation of kashmiri migrants created vide Government Order No.58-DMRRR of 2017 dtd. 29/7/2017, were de- reserved and were treated as open merit posts to be filled up out of the merit list already prepared by the concerned recruiting agency under open merit category.

(3.) The grievance of petitioners is that though respondent No.1, pursuant to the decision of SAC, rightly de-reserved unfilled reserved category posts under SC, ST, OSC and ALC Categories, yet there was apparently no reason or justification not to de-reserve the unfilled posts under RBA Category. The petitioners are primarily aggrieved of exclusion of unfilled reserved posts under RBA Category from de-reservation. The petitioners claim that had respondent No.1 de-reserved unfilled vacancies belonging to RBA Category, the petitioners would have come in the selection zone and would have got benefitted by the Prime Minister's package for employment of kashmiri migrants. The petitioners, as stated above, have also thrown challenge to the communication of Deputy Secretary to Government, Department of DMRRR dtd. 14/6/2019, whereby unfilled vacancies under RBA Category have been referred to the Service Selection Board for re- advertisement.