A Division Bench of Justice Vineet Saran and Dinesh Maheshwari while dealing with the contempt petitions and interlocutory applications filed for the purpose of seeking clarification/ modification in pursuance to the judgment dated September 1, 2019 wherein directions were issued to appoint 74 candidates- respondents against the 90 vacancies, observed that appointment shall be made in accordance with the law and on the basis of inter se merit.
The present batch of applications were filed by the cross- sections of candidates and the Haryana Staff Selection Commission seeking clarification/modification of the judgment and order dated September 1,
2021 passed by this Court in a civil appeal arising out of a special leave petition and in relation to a contempt petition.
Factual matrix of the case was that the Commission had issued an advertisement inviting applications for appointment of the post of Post- Graduate Teachers in different disciplines for which the qualification requisite was that of B.Ed. The advertisement was issued on June 28, 2015 and the last date for submission of online application form was October 12, 2015.
The cause of dispute arose from the fact that some of the candidates had appeared in the B.Ed examination of respective universities and though their final result was not declared, however the universities granted the candidates with provisional/ confidential result of B.Ed examination by the respective universities before October 12, 2015. Thus, the candidates applied in view of the aforesaid advertisement. However, the same was rejected by the Commission on the ground that the result declared was not final and was declared prior to the cut- off date.
The same was assailed by some candidates by way of writ petitions. The respective petitions were adjudicated upon by the single- judge of Punjab and Haryana High Court on October 23, 2017 and the petitions were accordingly allowed.
The same observation was reiterated by the Division Bench of the High Court. However, the same was assailed before the Apex Court in the form of appeals arising out of special leave petitions. The Court decided upon the same by considering the view of the High Court pronounced earlier and thus refused to interfere with the principal part of the impugned judgment. The Court also issued certain directions concerning appointment of the candidates, however the same were not followed by the Commission, aggrieved by the same the candidates/ writ petitioners approached the Top Court by instituting contempt jurisdiction. The Bench decided to deal with the miscellaneous applications and the other connected matters that passed the order dated September 1, 2021. Thus, the contempt petitions and the applications were listed before the Court in want of seeking intervention/ direction/ clarification.
The Commission contended that the operative part of the order dated September 1, 2021 was likely to result in undue advantage to those candidates who did not even secure cut - off marks and simultaneously the same shall result in denial of the right of such candidates who were found to be standing high in merits.
The Court after hearing the submissions of the rival parties took into consideration the interim order dated November 27, 2018 wherein it was provided that the offer of appointment shall be made against the said 90 vacancies within 4 weeks to 74 respondents and 16 interveners. It was further submitted that seeing all the circumstances collectively, this Court also opined that it would be appropriate to provide that the aforesaid 90 candidates shall be placed below the candidates who had already joined and seniority amongst these 90 candidates would be on the basis of inter se merit.
The Court thus, while considering the factual background of the case, observed that the dispute in the instant case arose when Commission refused to entertain the provisional/ confidential results of the candidates even when they were duly verified by the universities. It was further observed that if the Commission found that the directions in the order dated September 1, 2021 were requiring clarification/modification, they ought to have moved this Court well within the time of four weeks, however they chose to appear late and rather seems to have moved into action only after contempt petitions were filed in this Court and notices were issued. While observing the same, the Court stated that the same cannot be allowed to operate prejudicial to the interests of the persons standing higher in merit, when the process of appointment against the vacancies is executed in accordance with the interim order passed by this Court.
The Court further observed that the benefit of the interim order shall only be provided to the candidates who approached either the High Court or this Court before passing of the said order and cannot be indiscriminately extended to the persons who choose to remain fence- sitters and did not assert their rights at the relevant point of time.
It was further noted that the in the directions dated September 1, 2021, this Court provided for inter se merit of the 90 candidates, meaning to say that each candidate needs to go through the interview on which the inter se merit would depend and the appointment was not to be made simply on the ground that the candidate possesses the required marks.
The above observations were made by placing reliance on the maxim actus curiae neminem gravabit, meaning to say that while delivering justice it is a fundamental principle that the act of the Court should not be to the prejudice of anyone. Thus the contempt petitions were disposed of along with all the applications including interlocutory applications.
Case name: HARYANA STAFF SELECTION COMMISSION Vs. PRIYANKA ANS ORS ETC.
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