Bhagat Raj vs Municipal Corporation Of Delhi ...
1998 Latest Caselaw 639 Del

JUDGMENT

Devinder Gupta, J.

1. Petitioner is seeking quashing of the Select List of Assistant Teachers(G) and all Office Orders/letters issued to the selected candidates for the post of Assistant Teachers(G) and to direct the respondents to appoint the petitioner to the post of Assistant Teacher(G) Scheduled Caste category.

2. Petitioner is B.A., B.Ed, and belongs to Scheduled Caste category. His case is that in response to the advertisement issued by the respondent in 1992 for filling up the post of Assistant Teachers (General), he did apply and appeared in the competitive examination held on 1.3.1992 and was also declared successful in the written examination. He was also asked to appear in the personality test/interview on 11.9.1992, but thereafter did not hear anything from the respondents. Again in 1994, respondent No.2 advertised for 1878 posts of Assistant Teachers, out of which 274 were reserved for Scheduled Caste candidates. The posts were to be filled through written examination, which was scheduled to be held on 28.8.1994. On the day when the petitioner reached the examination centre, it was learnt that the examination had been postponed because of leakage of examination papers. It was informed that fresh dates will be notified and candidates will be intimated about the same. No examination took place thereafter. Petitioner was shocked to learn that without holding examination, candidates were selected in an arbitrary, illegal and pick and

choose manner. Petitioner made inquiry and came to know that the respondent had declared a panel of 1878 Assistant Teachers, but his name was missing from the list. The examination, which was mandatory, was not held. The persons with less merit than the petitioner had been included in the list. The action of the respondents in filling up the posts in an arbitrary manner, without conduct of examination is under challenge on various grounds.

3. The respondents in reply filed on the affidavit of R.K.S. Gaur, Assistant Education Officer stated that 1992 selection for recruitment of Assistant Teachers was done through Staff Selection Commission and appointments were made from the list of successful candidates submitted by SSC. The petitioner was not successful, as per the list of successful candidates sent by SSC and as such, appointment could not be offered to him.

4. In reply, it is stated that in the year 1994, again Assistant Teachers were to be recruited for which respondent approached SSC but the latter showed its inability to undertake the work of recruitment. The respondent then engaged Centre for Policy Research (a Society working under the Indian Council of Social Science Research, Ministry of Human Resources, Government of India) for selection of candidates for the post of Assistant Teachers. The selection was to be made on the basis of written test and interview for which examination was scheduled for 28.8.1994. Examination could not be held on the said date due to leakage of question papers. The conduct of leakage of paper on the part of Centre for Policy Research was taken as a serious lapse. The Corporation could not take any risk thereafter by entrusting the work of selection again to the said centre. The matter was referred to the Legal Advisor, who opined that there was no bar to conduct selection either by written test or on the basis of marks obtained by candidates. Accordingly Commissioner vide order dated 1.9.1994 decided to adopt the method followed by the Directorate of Education, Government of Delhi and to work out the merit list to save further loss of time. The matter was deeply considered by the Special Officer of MCD, who referred the matter to the Secretary (Law and Judicial) for his considered opinion. On 5.9.1994 the Secretary (Law and Judicial) opined that only an administrative decision was required to be taken in regard to the procedure to be adopted for selection of candidates. The Secretary (UD) then proposed to follow the method adopted by the Directorate of Education and accordingly, an order was passed by the Commissioner, MCD to select candidates as per the said procedure. The said decision was duly approved by the Chief Minister on 19.9.1994. The matter was examined at length by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and by the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi and it was decided to recruit Assistant Teachers on the basis of merits as SSC had refused to undertake the work of recruitment and with the leakage of papers, the Corporation had lost faith in the Centre for Policy Research. The said criterion was duly approved by the Special Officer of the Corporation and a decision No.4294 dated 23.1.1995 was accordingly taken and a resolution No.4187 was duly passed for selection of candidates on the basis of merits.

5. The reply states that the Corporation started selection process on the basis of marks obtained by each candidate and in the first phase of selection, the cut-off percentage of marks for General category was fixed at 64.5%; for Scheduled Castes at 60.63% and for Scheduled Tribes at 52.70%. In the second phase of selection, the cut-off percentage of marks came down to 62% for General candidates, to 58% for Scheduled Castes and to 48% for Scheduled Tribes. The average percentage of marks obtained by the petitioner works out to only 50% and thus, he did not qualify for selection cither in the first phase or in the second phase of selection.

6. Challenge to the selection process of selecting 1878 Assistant Teachers in 1994 came up for consideration before a Division Bench of this Court in C.W. No. 3110/95 tilled "Sunil Kumar Wadhwa and Ors. v. Municipal Corporation of Delhi". Challenge was turned down when the said writ petition was dismissed on 26.7.1996 upholding the criteria adopted by the respondent. It was held that the policy decision taken at the highest level was neither unreasonable, nor arbitrary. In yet another case, C.W. No.2392/95 titled "Rakesh and Ors. v. Government of National Capital & Ors.", the criteria adopted by the respondents and the policy decision taken after leakage of paper was upheld and the writ petition was also dismissed. In the instant case also, we do not find any ground to differ with the two decisions rendered in the cases of Sunil Kumar Wadhwa and Rakesh and Ors.(supra) merely for the reason that some additional grounds are sought to be raised that some candidates, who were less meritorious, were selected rather than the petitioner, particularly in view of the counter-affidavit that the petitioner was duly considered and was not found eligible. The petitioner had secured marks less than the cut-off marks. The respondent adopted the method of selecting candidates on the basis of marks obtained by them, which method was applied equally to all and the same was held to be fair and proper in the special facts and circumstances of the case in the above two cases. Consequently, the writ petition, which has no merit, is dismissed.