JUDGMENT Ramachandran Nair, J. 1. State has filed this writ appeal challenging the judgment of the learned single Judge directing the Appellant to issue participation certificate to the Respondent. We have heard senior Government Pleader for Appellant and also counsel appearing for the respondent. The Appellant has been organising annual competition for school students under the name Kerala School Science, Mathematics and Social Science Work Experiences Fair every year at Sub District, District and State level. There is no dispute with regard to the first level selection obtained by the Respondent wherein he qualified to participate in the District level competition. However, in the evaluation of the relative merit of those participated in the competition at the District level held at Thiruvananthapuram district Respondent could not come as first or second and consequentially he was not allowed to go to the State Level competition in the fair wherein representation of each District consist of two teams, of two each selected in the order of merit. In other words 4 other students who secured highest position in the District level competition were selected from Thiruvananthapuram District to the State level fair. However in an appeal filed by respondent challenging the selection of other two teams from the District, the appellant authority, the Deputy Director of Education issued orders directing the organisors to permit he respondent also to participate in the State level competition. However in the State level competition respondent secured 162 marks, whereas two other teams who were originally selected from the District secured 209 and 226 marks respectively. Those two teams were issued certificates and at the same time Respondent was declined a certificate of participation, against which writ petition was filed which was allowed by the single Judge through the impugned judgment with direction to the appellant to issue certificate based on the performance of the respondent. It is against this judgment this writ appeal is filed by the State. 2. Senior Government Pleader appearing for the appellant relied on clause (j) of Ext. P7 Manual for the fair and submitted that students permitted to appear under orders issued by the Court or appellate authority are entitled to certificates based on performance only if he or she comes out better than the originally selected teams. 2. Senior Government Pleader appearing for the appellant relied on clause (j) of Ext. P7 Manual for the fair and submitted that students permitted to appear under orders issued by the Court or appellate authority are entitled to certificates based on performance only if he or she comes out better than the originally selected teams. Counsel appearing for the respondent on the other hand submitted that since respondent was permitted to participate in the State level he should have been awarded certificate based on the grade he got in the competition. 3. After hearing both sides and on going through the manual for the fair which is Ext.P7 we notice that eligibility for participation from a District is only for two teams who secure first and second position in the District level competition. Admittedly respondent could not get included in the two teams selected for participation in the District level competition wherein 4 other students secured higher position. Respondent's entitlement for participation at the State level therefore was not based on the ranking he got in selection but based an order issued by the Deputy Director of Education in an appeal filed by respondent against the selection made in the District level itself. In fact the Deputy Director of Education while directing the appellant to allow participation of the respondent in the State level did not hold that the selection of the other two teams was in corrector that the respondent should substitute any one of them. In the absence of any such decision the permission granted to the respondent to participate in the State level should betaken as an interim arrangement made by the Deputy Director of Education. So much so, unless the respondent faired better than the members of the two teams selected from the District it cannot be said that the selection made at District level was not correct. So long as selected team members only are entitled to certificate based on performance in the State level competition, Respondent can, claim under clause (j) of Ext.P7 Manual only if he scores better grade above members of those teams. Under the Manual Respondent is not entitled to any certificate merely based on participation which was only an ad-hoc arrangement made by the appellate authority. Under the Manual Respondent is not entitled to any certificate merely based on participation which was only an ad-hoc arrangement made by the appellate authority. In fact Clause (j) though deals with only cases of participation permitted under court orders it equally applies to orders issued by the appellate authority such as Deputy Director of Education as in this case who permitted participation at State level to respondent on an ad-hoc basis. So long as only two teams consisting of 4 students are entitled to participate at the State level, no more student could participate from a District over and above the permitted numbers and only such students are entitled to certificate depending on performance at the State level. The presumption in Clause (j) is that if any person permitted under interim orders issued by the appellant authority or court fairs better than selected candidates then the performance of such student will go against the selection at the District level and consequently he or she will be entitled to get certificate. In this case since respondents performance is far below that of the candidates originally selected and who participated in the State level fair appellant rightly declined certificate to the respondent based on performance. Consequently we allow the writ appeal by vacating the judgment of the learned single Judge and uphold the stand taken by the appellant in declining certificate to the respondent.