HC: Consider BC candidate with higher merit in open category

CHANDIGARH: The Punjab and Haryana High Court has held that a Backward Class candidate has to be considered for open or general category posts in a selection process if he secures higher merit than the general category candidates.

Saurabh Malik

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 16

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has held that a Backward Class candidate has to be considered for open or general category posts in a selection process if he secures higher merit than the general category candidates.

Justice Tejinder Singh Dhindsa also ruled that the state of Punjab’s action of considering Backward Class candidates in their category alone, and not for the open posts, in spite of higher merit was bad in the eyes of law. The case revolves around recruitment of 1,192 clerks in different Punjab government departments.

The issue for determination before Justice Dhindsa’s Bench was whether a Backward Class candidate applying for a post in direct recruitment process by exercising his option as a reserved category candidate could be considered for an unreserved vacancy if he was higher on merit than the last selected candidate in the general category.

Parminder Singh and other petitioners in a bunch of 19 petitions argued that a large number of Backward Class candidates had secured a higher merit position than the last selected candidate in the general category. As such, they ought to have been considered in the open category.

The state counsel, on the other hand, contended that the petitioners had applied under the Backward Class category. Therefore, their merit was to be prepared and confined to that category alone.

Justice Dhindsa asserted that the law on the subject is well crystallised. If a candidate belonging to the reserved category secured a better merit position than that of general category, he would consume a general category point because reservation was made for the reserved category candidate and not for the general category candidate.

Justice Dhindsa asserted that the state of Punjab and other respondents, in the present case, proceeded to separately prepare a category-wise select list on the erroneous premise that there was reservation even for the general category.

Justice Dhindsa directed the recasting of the Backward Class category select list in the light of the observations contained in the judgement. He directed that the benefit of the exercise would be confined only to the petitioners in the bunch of petitions. The petitioners securing appointment after recasting of the select list were also held entitled to costs of Rs 25, 000 each for unwarranted and unnecessary litigation.