SUKH RAM Vs. STATE OF RAJASTHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THESE two writ petitions have been filed seeking the relief to struck down the proviso to rule 7 of the Rajasthan Education Subordinate Service Rules, 1971 (for short, "the Act, 1971") quashing the advertisement and the corrigendum and directing the respondents to fill up the posts by issusing fresh advertisement. Since both these writ petitions involve identical questions of law and facts, they are being deciding by this common order taking SBCWP No. 1905/2001, Sukh Ram & Ors. vs. State of Rajasthan & Ors. , as the leading case.

(2.) THE facts and circumstances giving rise to the writ petition are that the respondents issued an advertisement dated 31. 3. 2001 for direct recruitment on the post of Teachers Grade II against the vacancies for the year 2000-2001. In pursuance to the said advertisement, the petitioners submitted their applications. However, a corrigendum was issued declaring all the vacancies of 2000-2001 reserved for the members of Schedule Castes/scheduled Tribes. THE representations submitted by the petitioners could yield nothing. Hence these writ petitions.

(3.) RULE 7 of the RULEs, 1971 provides reservation of vacancies for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes. Sub-rule (4) of rule 7 provided for carrying forward the backlog vacancies for SC/st candidates to the subsequent three recruitment years in total and thereafter such reservation would lapse. As per the Circular-order Annex. R/1 issued by the State Government on 9. 10. 2000, in view of the provisions of Article 16 (4b) of the Constitution of India, the State Government decided to revise the applicability of 50% ceiling on reservation as under:- " The revised vacancies for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in all cases of direct recruitment and promotion, wherever applicable, which have remained unfilled in the earlier year (s), i. e. backlog and/of carried forward vacancies would be treated as a separate and district group and will not be considered together with the reserved vacancies of the year in which they are being filled up for determining the ceiling of 50% reservation on total number of vacancies of that year. In other words, the ceiling of 50% of filling up of reserved vacancies would apply only on the reserved vacancies which arise in the current year and the backlog/carried forward reserved vacancies for SCs/sts of earlier years would be treated as a separate and distinct group and would not be subject to any ceiling. "