Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, July 16: In the LPA filed by Public Service Commission against the judgment of Writ Court, Division Bench of State High Court comprising Chief Justice N Paul Vasanthakumar and Justice Ali Mohammad Magrey has issued various directions to the Commission.
The Writ Court had granted liberty to the writ petitioners to make representation voicing their grievance with regard to the selection made and had asked the Commission to accord consideration to their representation by giving them liberty of hearing and thereafter pass orders warranted under facts and in light of the averments made in the representation in compliance with Rule 33 (1) of the Jammu and Kashmir Public Service Commission (Conduct of Examination) Rules, 2005. The directions were ordered to be complied with within eight weeks.
After hearing both the sides, DB observed, “all the writ petitioners are permitted to submit representation before the 2nd appellant, namely, Chairman, J&K Public Service Commission, explaining their grievance within a period of two weeks, if not already submitted and the 2nd appellant is directed to take a decision as directed by the Single Judge, keeping in mind the power conferred on him under Rule 33 (C), within a period of six weeks”.
The case of the respondents/ writ petitioners before the Single Judge was that the J&K Public Service Commission vide Advertisement Notification dated 01.05.2010 invited applications from eligible candidates for consideration and appointment against the advertised posts of Junior Scale of Jammu and Kashmir Administrative Service, J&K Police (Gazetted) Service and J&K Accounts (Gazetted) Service.
The date of preliminary examination was notified as 29.08.2010 and the main examination was notified for 01.02.2011. The qualification prescribed was that the applicant must hold a Bachelor’s Degree in any subject from a recognized University in India or from a Foreign University declared by Government as equivalent. The writ petitioners applied under Open Merit category and Resident of Backward Area (RBA) category before the cutoff date.
The Public Service Commission entertained the applications of the writ petitioners and issued admit cards for taking the preliminary examination. According to the writ petitioners, on qualifying the preliminary examination they applied for the main examination which was conducted by the Commission from 03.03.2011 to 28.03.2011 and all the writ petitioners appeared in the main written examination also.
As per the marks certificates, all the writ petitioners secured between 996 to 1137 marks and the cut off marks for short listing for purposes of interview was 991. The writ petitioners were not called for the viva voce test on the ground that they had failed to secure the qualifying marks in the English paper I (Matriculate or Equivalent Standard) of the Main Examination of 2010. The marks secured by the writ petitioners in English paper I were 98, 77, 77, 97, 92, 98, 95, 93 and 91 respectively out of 300. The select list was published on 03.09.2011. The writ petitioners having expected more marks in English Paper I of the main examination 2010, contended that the evaluator failed to apply the uniform standards in awarding the marks to all the competing candidates and as per Rule 33 of the J&K Public Service Commission (Conduct of Examination) Rules, 2005 the candidates were entitled to have a right to seek scrutiny of marks and rechecking of results.
The writ petitioners applied in the prescribed form to the Controller of Examination for scrutiny of marks and rechecking of their results. However, no action was taken leading to filing to writ petition praying for direction to scrutinize their English Paper I by Scrutinizers/ Evaluators/Examiners well equipped in the subject of English with sufficient experience and based on the scrutiny of the marks, consider them for inviting for viva voce test and grant them selection against the advertised posts as per their preference.
The writ petition was opposed by the appellants/Public Service Commission by contending that Rule 31 and 33 of 2005 Rules nowhere give entitlement for re-evaluation of the answer papers and the Controller of Examination has scrutinized the answer papers of the writ petitioners and noticed no change in the results which was also intimated to the writ petitioners.
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