Jharkhand High Court
Mani Xess vs The State Of Jharkhand Through ... on 29 June, 2022
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JHARKHAND AT RANCHI
(Letters Patent Appellate Jurisdiction)
LPA No. 637 of 2018
1. Mani Xess, w/o Pinja Oraon, Village-Gajni, PS-Bhandara (Keero),
PO-Gajni, District-Lohardaga.
2. Sudhir Sharma, s/o Anchu Singh, resident of 734 B/Block-Sonari,
PO & PS-Sonari, District-Jamshedpur.
3. Nitu Kumari, w/o Manoj Kumar, B-Block, Qrtr No. 8, Golmuri Police line,
PO-Agrico, PS-Golmuri, District-Jamshedpur.
4. Neetu Kumari, w/o Chandra Shekhar Yadav, L.S.G.8, B-Block, Golmuri
Police Line, PO-Agrico, PS-Golmuri, District-Jamshedpur.
......Appellants
Versus
1. The State of Jharkhand through Principal Secretary, Principal Secretary,
Personal Administrative Reforms and Rajbhasha Vibhag, Government of
Jharkhand, Project Building, Project Bhawan, PO&PS-Dhurwa, Ranchi.
2. Jharkhand State Staff Selection Commission through its Secretary,
Kalinagar, Chaiya Bagan, Namkom Ranchi, PO&PS-Namkom, District-
Ranchi.
3. Controller of Examination, Jharkhand State Staff Selection Commission,
Kalinagar, Chaiya Bagan, Namkom Ranchi, PO&PS-Namkom, District-
Ranchi.
4. Principal Secretary, Department of Home, Prison and Disaster Management,
Ground Floor, Engineer's Hostel-I, near Golchakkar, Dhurwa, Ranchi,
Jharkhand. ..... Respondents
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CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE SHREE CHANDRASHEKHAR
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE RATNAKER BHENGRA
For the Appellants : Mrs. Suchitra Pandey, Advocate
For the Respondent Nos. 2 & 3 : Mr. Bhavesh Kumar, Advocate
Mr. Sanjeev Kumar, Advocate
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ORDER
29th June 2022
Per, Shree Chandrashekhar, J.
The appellants have challenged the order dated 27 th June 2018
passed in W.P.(S) No. 655 of 2018 by which their prayer for constituting a
fresh committee to assess the option for correct answers in Paper-2 and
Paper-3 has been rejected.
2. During pendency of the writ petition, an application vide I.A.
No. 3975 of 2018 was filed by the appellants for a direction upon the
respondents to keep four posts vacant till final disposal of the writ petition.
3. The Jharkhand State Staff Selection Commission invited
applications for filling up 1544 posts of Sub-Inspectors through Jharkhand
Police Sub-Inspector Limited Competitive Examination-2017. The writ
petitioners who are the appellants before us were unsuccessful candidates.
They approach the writ Court with a grievance that option for answers in
Paper-2 and Paper-3 were not correct and several questions for written test
were wrongly formulated or were out of syllabus.
4. In support of their contentions, judgments in "Ran Vijay Singh v.
State of U.P." (2018) 2 SCC 357, "P.K. Velson v. Union of India" (2005) 11
SCC 192 and "Manish Ujwal v. Maharishi Dayanand Saraswati University"
(2005) 13 SCC 744 were relied upon before the writ Court.
5. The Jharkhand State Staff Selection Committee took a stand that
model answers were published and objections were invited and only upon
verification and correction on the basis of the advice of the expert Committee
final revised model answers were published. The judgments in "H.P. Public
Service Commission v. Mukesh Thakur" (2010) 6 SCC 759 and "Smt. Prabha
Ranjan Gupta v. State of Jharkhand" (2014) 3 JCR 291 Jhr. were referred to on
behalf of the Jharkhand State Staff Selection Committee to submit that the
Court cannot take upon itself the task of examiner or the expert.
6. The writ Court took note of the aforesaid judgment and came to a
conclusion that the writ petition filed by the appellants has no substance.
7. The writ Court has held as under :
"8. Similar issue fell for consideration before this Hon'ble Court in
W.P.(C). No. 4184 of 2005 (Bimlesh Kumar Vs. Jharkhand Public
Service Commission & Anr.) and this Hon'ble Court, while dismissing
the said writ application, has held that petitioner had appeared in the
examination without any objection and subsequently, writ application
has been filed after results have been declared and appointments have
been made and as such, I find no merit in this writ application, which
is, accordingly, dismissed.
9. The Hon'ble Apex Court in case of Ran Vijay Singh & Ors. Vs. State
of U.P. & Ors. has clearly held that, in the event of a doubt, the benefit
should go to the examination authority rather than to the candidate.
Even if some questions were out of syllabus, the candidates cannot take
benefits out of it for allotment of grace marks.
10. As a cumulative effect of the aforesaid observations, rules,
guidelines, legal propositions and in view of the fact that already entire
examination and selection process is over, I do not find any merit in
this writ petitions. Accordingly, this writ petition stands dismissed.
However, the respondents are directed to take due care and caution in
setting up questions and declaration of results so that any candidate
may not face such situation. This Court is bound to note down that the
recruiting bodies should not commit any mistake so that career of
prospective and potential candidates is jeopardized and in turn State
would not be able to find out candidates with best brain."
8. It appears that similar writ petitions were dismissed and challenge
to the dismissal order was laid through Letters Patent Appeals. A batch of
Letters Patent Appeals were heard together and by judgment reported in
"Sachit Kumar Singh v. State of Jharkhand" LPA No. 297 of 2018 and
analogous cases the appeals were dismissed.
9. In view of the judgment in LPA No. 297 of 2018 and analogous
cases, we hold that a similar plea which was already agitated before Hon'ble
DB-I cannot be re-agitated before us. The judicial proprietary and discipline
require a Court of co-equal strength to follow the judgment delivered by
another Division Bench on the same issue. In "State of Bihar v. Kalika Kuer"
(2003) 5 SCC 448 the Hon'ble Supreme Court has observed that in a case
where the Court feels that the judgment by a bench of co-equal strength may
not be correct still another bench cannot differ with the same and it is bound by
the previous judgment.
10. Mrs. Suchitra Pandey, the learned counsel for the appellants
would, however, urge that if the State itself finds that the rules were not
properly framed and amends the rules benefit should flow to the applicants like
the present appellants. On legal principles, we agree with the learned counsel
for the appellants but for that reason we cannot differ with the decision
rendered by Hon'ble DB-I in LPA No. 297 of 2018 and analogous cases.
11. In "Kalika Kuer" the Hon'ble Supreme Court has observed as
under:
"10.........an earlier decision may seem to be incorrect to a Bench of a
coordinate jurisdiction considering the question later, on the ground
that a possible aspect of the matter was not considered or not raised
before the court or more aspects should have been gone into by the
court deciding the matter earlier but it would not be a reason to say
that the decision was rendered per incuriam and liable to be ignored.
The earlier judgment may seem to be not correct yet it will have the
binding effect on the later Bench of coordinate jurisdiction. Easy
course of saying that earlier decision was rendered per incuriam is not
permissible and the matter will have to be resolved only in two ways --
either to follow the earlier decision or refer the matter to a larger
Bench to examine the issue, in case it is felt that earlier decision is not
correct on merits......."
12. For the aforesaid reasons, we are not inclined to entertain this
Letters Patent Appeal and, accordingly, LPA No. 637 of 2018 is dismissed.
(Shree Chandrashekhar, J.)
(Ratnaker Bhengra, J.)
RKM/-
