Allahabad High Court
Anjali Shukla vs State Of U.P.Thru ... on 3 February, 2023
Bench: Vivek Chaudhary
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD, LUCKNOW BENCH
?Court No. - 4
Case :- WRIT - A No. - 30826 of 2019
Petitioner :- Anjali Shukla
Respondent :- State Of U.P.Thru Prin.Secy.Appointment Deptt. Lko And Ors.
Counsel for Petitioner :- Vishnu Kumar Srivastava,Pratap Singh
Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.,Ashok Shukla
Hon'ble Vivek Chaudhary,J.
Learned counsel for petitioner has filed rejoinder affidavit today and the same is taken on record.
Heard learned counsels for parties and Sri R.K. Upadhyay, learned counsel for the U.P. Public Services Commission.
By the present writ petition, petitioner has challenged the cut-off list to the extent to which petitioner has been treated as a general candidate and declared unsuccessful in the result of Combined Engineering (General/Special Recruit) Examination 2013. The petitioner is a female candidate, who was entitled to the women quota. Petitioner, admittedly, is a domicile of Madhya Pradesh.
An advertisement was issued by the Commission on 24.12.2013. The advertisement, as per the Government Order dated 09.01.2007, provided women reservation only to the domicile of State of U.P. and not to women of other States. The said Government Order was under challenge in Writ-A No.11039 of 2018; Vipin Kumar Maurya and Others Vs. State of U.P. and Others and connected matters. The said writ petition was allowed by judgment and order dated 16.01.2019 and clause-4 of the Government Order dated 09.01.2007, to the extent it restricted benefit of reservation to the women, domicile of State of U.P. alone, was declared ultra vires to Article 16(2) & 16(3) of the Constitution of India. The result is declared in May, 2019. The select list is declared without taking into consideration the aforesaid judgment of this Court whereby the Government Order to the extent of reservation for women stands modified.
Learned Standing Counsel and learned counsel for the respondent-Commission admit the aforesaid factual preposition. They, however, submit that since the judgment has come during pendency of the selection process and, hence, it should not be applied to the present selection process.
Learned counsel for the petitioner strongly places reliance upon paragraph-62 of the aforesaid judgment dated 16.01.2019 which has also considered the said aspect of the matter and also held that once a provision is declared ultra vires, the same is treated to be viod-ab-initio.
In the result the writ petition is allowed.
Respondents are directed to prepare the fresh select list with regard to selected women candidates as per directions contained in judgment and order dated 16.01.2019 passed by this Court.
It is also stated that the order dated 16.01.2019 is under challenge before the Division Bench in Special Appeal (Defective) No.475 of 2019, however, there is no stay order granted in the said special appeal.
Since, there is no stay order, therefore, respondents are bound to comply with the present order.
It is further made clear that the fresh select list shall be subject to the final decision passed in Special Appeal (Defective) No.475 of 2019.
(Vivek Chaudhary,J.)
Order Date :- 3.2.2023
Arjun/-
