Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Jan 9: As the Service Selection Board (SSB) has give selection of a candidate to a non-existent post and thereafter refused to give any appointment to him, the High Court has directed the Chief Secretary to utilize the post in question in any other department and appoint and absorb the aggrieved candidate to such post within two months.
Hearing the appeal of SSB challenging the single judge judgment whereby the Board was directed to act upon the selection and appoint the candidate against the post in question, the division bench of Justice Sanjeev Kumar and Justice Rajnesh Oswal while issuing direction to the Chief Secretary about absorbing the candidate in any other department said despite asking by the court, the SSB failed to tender any plausible explanation.
The DB said the record produced by SSB was incomplete and instead clearing the mist, confounded the confusion and the court on perusal of the said record could not arrive at any conclusion. Court directed that the whole matter with regard to selection and appointment of the candidate who belongs to Schedule Caste Category be placed before the Chief Secretary of J&K UT.
Court directed the CS to issue appropriate orders for appointment of the candidate as Junior Assistant under ‘OSC’ category available in the department of Tourism, Finance, Health, PWD, Planning & Development, Higher Education, Animal Husbandry or Cooperative department.
“The appointment of the writ petitioner shall date back to the date when the candidates selected pursuant to advertisement of 2011 were selected and appointed by the Government and shall be entitled to all consequential benefits minus monetary benefits”, court directed. “The aforesaid exercise be undertaken and completed within a period of two months from the date a certified copy of judgment is served upon the Chief Secretary”, it further directed.
On the arguments of Advocate General that mere selection does not confer any right to a person for appointment and the appointment to a selected candidate can be denied for good reasons, court said, the non-availability of vacancy can be a good reason for denial of appointment but the case in hand is entirely different.
Court said the candidate had not applied for selection to the post of Jr. Assistant in Finance department only but he had applied in all the 93 vacancies as advertised by the Board which were available in different departments.
“Absent the clarification from the SSB with regard to the notification of one out of 93 vacancies of Jr. Assistant under ‘OSC’ category, this court has no option but to believe that the selection of the aggrieved candidate has been made against the available post of post in question under the ‘OSC’ category”, the DB recorded.
Court in these circumstances said, to deny appointment to the aggrieved candidate would be highly arbitrary and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India as such this court is well within its right to step in to undo the injustice.
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