XAVIER EKKA Vs. STATE OF JHARKHAND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner has approached this Court with a prayer for a direction upon the respondents to consider the case of the petitioner for appointment to the post of Headmaster as juniors to the petitioner have already been considered and given appointment on the said post.

(2.) The case of the petitioner lies in a narrow compass. The petitioner is an Assistant Teacher and presently working as Incharge Headmaster in St. Narsingh Girl's High School, Manoharpur. The petitioner belongs to Scheduled Tribe Category and is having requisite qualification to be appointed/promoted to the post of Headmaster. It is specific case of the petitioner that pursuant to letter No. 1354 dated 04.08.2006 of Director, Secondary Education, Government of Jharkhand, an Advertisement vide Notice No. 15/2006 was published by Jharkhand Public Service Commission, Ranchi, inviting application for appointment of 257 Headmasters in the Govt. High Schools of State of Jharkhand in the daily newspapers of Ranchi on 07.12.2006. Pursuant thereto, the petitioner and several other applied for the same. Since the petitioner fulfilled all the eligibility criteria, he was issued Admit card along with others. Thereafter, he appeared in the selection process and qualified in the examination and his name figured in the list of successful candidates, published on 21.02.2008 under Scheduled Tribe Category and was called for counselling and verification of the certificate. Subsequently, the petitioner appeared before the respondents for document verification, but again he was called for counselling, then he further appeared for the same and his certificates were verified along with original certificate.

(3.) It is further case of the petitioner that thereafter, a final revised/merit list was published and accordingly, recommendations were sent to respondent No.2-Director, Secondary Education, Govt. of Jharkhand for appointment of the successful candidates to the said post. However, again vide letter dated 28.04.2009, JPSC sent revised category-wise recommendation list with regard to pending cases to the respondent No.2 and name of the petitioner was at Sl. No.1 in S.T. Category. Further, a common list containing names of successful candidates, whose names appeared in both the first list and revised list was filed in W.P.(S) No.301 of 2012 upon Court's order and name of the petitioner figured at Sl. No.30 in common list and at Sl. No.1 in S.T. Category. It is further case of the petitioner that the respondents authorities in spite of issuing appointment letters to all the successful candidates, adopted pick and choose method and vide letter No. 1465 dated 14.05.2009 issued appointment letters only to 70 candidates from General Category (out of 123 successful candidates), 3 candidates from OBC Category and 2 candidates only from SC Category from the revised merit list and not a single candidate from ST Category was appointed to the said post. As the petitioner was deprived of his legal right to get appointment to the post of Headmaster, he has been constrained to knock the door of this Court for redressal of his grievances.