MANGLA RAM BISHNOI Vs. STATE OF RAJASTHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) -These writ petitions involving common questions of law and facts were heard together for final disposal at the admission stage, with the consent of the learned counsel appearing for the parties and are being decided by this common judgment.

(2.) THE petitioners belonging to Other Backward Classes (OBC) are aggrieved by the action of the respondents in denying appointment to the OBC candidates on the post of Sub Inspector under the provisions of Rajasthan Police Subordinate Service Rules, 1989 (in short "the Rules of 1989") in the general/open category though they have secured more marks than the last candidate selected in general category, solely on the ground that they have availed the benefit of relaxation in upper age limit extended to the candidates belonging to OBC category under Rule 11 of the Rules of 1989 and therefore, they are not entitled to compete with the genera] category candidates against the unreserved seats.

(3.) A reply to the show cause notice has been filed on behalf of the respondent Nos. 1 to 4 (RPSC and the State) in Mangla Ram's case (S.B.C. Writ Petition No. 8023/09) stating that the candidates belonging to OBC category who have not taken the advantage of age relaxation and are within the age limit i.e. 25 years prescribed for general category candidates and upto 28 years after three years age relaxation available to government servants, are entitled to be appointed according to their own merit against the unreserved posts and therefore, they have been selected and recommended for appointment to the posts belonging to the general category. It is stated that the persons who have availed the age relaxation available to the OBC category under the Rules of 1989 have been put in the list of OBC category though, they stand higher in the merit list of general/open category. Thus, precisely the stand of the respondents is that the persons who have availed the benefit of relaxation of age and applied for appointment to the post in the OBC category are entitled to be appointed against the posts reserved for their own category and cannot be permitted to compete with the candidates belonging to the general/open category for which they were ineligible to compete on account of the age bar. In other words, according to the respondents the candidates belonging to the reserved category who have not entered into the competitive examinations with the same eligibility as prescribed for general/open category are not entitled to be included in the merit list of the candidates belonging to general/open category.