ASHOK RAM Vs. STATE OF RAJASTHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The instant intra court appeal calls into question the judgment dtd. 17/2/2021 passed by the learned Single Bench of this court, whereby S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 680/2021 (Ashok Ram and Ors. v. State of Rajasthan and Ors.) preferred by the appellants herein was dismissed.

(2.) The moot controversy involved in this appeal is whether the respondents were justified in applying the Most Backward Category (for short, 'MBC') and Economically Backward Sec. (for short, 'EWS') reservation to the ongoing recruitment process initiated by the Rajasthan Public Service Commission (for short, 'RPSC') vide advertisement dtd. 13/4/2018 for making selection to the posts of Lecturer (School Education). At inception, the advertisement provided reservation only to the candidates of SC, ST, OBC, SBC and PH categories. The mode of Selection was through competitive examination and the last date for submitting the application forms was 16/6/2018. While the recruitment process was still in progress, an order dtd. 23/6/2019 came to be issued by the State Government clarifying that 5% reservation for MBC and 10% reservation for EWS had been introduced by Notifications dtd. 13/2/2019 and 19/2/2019 respectively and thus, it was considered expedient to apply these reservations to such recruitment processes, where examinations had not been held at any stage. It was also stipulated in the same order that advertised posts shall be re-categorized and the recruiting agency in question shall issue an amended notification and further procedure to be adopted was also indicated. As a consequence of the order dtd. 23/6/2019, the RPSC issued a corrigendum dtd. 19/9/2019 providing enhanced reservation for MBC category and reservation for EWS category by carving out the required number of posts from the unreserved category. Being aggrieved of the order dtd. 23/6/2019 and the corrigendum dtd. 19/9/2019, the appellants-petitioners, who are candidates of unreserved category, filed the Writ Petition No. 680/2021 before learned Single Bench claiming that by advertisement dtd. 13/4/2018, total 5000 posts of Lecturer (School Education) in 20 subjects had been advertised, of which 2541 posts were meant for unreserved/open category candidates. However, on account of the corrigendum dtd. 19/9/2019 providing for enhanced reservation, the posts earmarked for unreserved category had been reduced to 2050 by reserving 491 posts for MBC and EWS categories.

(3.) On behalf of the writ petitioners-appellants, two submissions were mainly advanced before the learned single Bench. Firstly that the order dtd. 23/6/2019 could not have been applied in the ongoing recruitment process, which had been initiated on 13/4/2018, i.e. well before issuance of the Notifications dtd. 13/2/2019 and 19/2/2019 and secondly that in any event, the posts earmarked for the unreserved candidates could not have been reduced.