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2014 DIGILAW 1187 (PAT)

Md. Firoz Ahmad s/o Md. Zubair Alam v. State of Bihar through the Chief Secretary, Government of Bihar, Patna

2014-12-01

RAMESH KUMAR DATTA, RAVI RANJAN

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ORDER : RAMESH KUMAR DATTA, J. 1. Heard learned counsel for the writ petitioner-appellant and learned counsel for the State. 2. The appellant being aggrieved by the order dated 16.7.2010 passed in CWJC No. 11780 of 2007 is before us. This is the second round of litigation by the petitioner-appellant. 3. The appellant had applied for the post of Constable against Advertisement No. 1/98 issued in the year 1998. Since he was not selected at the outset he approached this Court by filing CWJC No. 1999 of 2001 which was disposed of along with 70 other writ petitions by a common order dated 23.3.2007 by which the petitioners were directed to file fresh representation which was to be decided in accordance with law within a period of three months and an intimation to that effect was to be communicated to them. The petitioner-appellant filed a representation dated 17.4.2007 which was rejected by order dated 12.7.2007 of the Deputy Inspector General of Police, Eastern Region, Bhagalpur. The ground of rejection was that although earlier the petitioner appellant’s height was found to be 170 c.m. during the course of physical verification and on subsequent re-measurement his height was found to be 180 c.m. but the appellant belonging to general category was found to have the same height as the last appointed Constable on the panel whose height was also 180 c.m. but the date of birth of the said candidate was 1.2.1971 whereas that of the appellant was 10.2.1973 and thus on the basis of higher age the other candidate was selected. 4. On the aforesaid facts the writ court held that if the facts indicated in the speaking order were correct which had not been seriously disputed then there was no occasion now to direct the petitioner to be appointed on the post of constable, more so after more than a decade when the advertisement was issued for recruitment and the recruitment process had already been completed. 5. We have perused the averments made in the writ petition and we agree with the observations of the writ court that the facts of the matter are not seriously disputed although certain vague assertions have been made by the appellant about the entire vacancy not having been filled up, but in support of which sufficient facts are not on the record. The appellant also sought to assert that a second list was prepared in which the name of the appellant was there but the same list was not published and thus no appointment could be made from the said second list. 6. In our view, the said averment regarding the appellant being in the second list which has never been published can be of no avail and in the absence of clear facts no direction could be given, that too at this belated stage, when the second list was not published and no appointment was made from the said list. 7. Learned counsel also sought to rely upon the alleged similar cases of two other writ petitioners whose cases were also disposed of by the common order dated 23.3.2007 of this Court earlier and by the same order dated 12.7.2007 of the DIG. It is stated that after the rejection of the cases of Md. Rizwan Ansari and another by the said order of the D.I.G. they had filed writ petition which was similarly rejected but at the stage of LPA the State itself filed a supplementary counter affidavit to state that the appellant No.2 Md. Basad Raza had been appointed and the case of appellant No.1 Md. Rizwan Ansari was pending police verification report. 8. In our view, the case of the aforesaid two candidates do not at all fall in the same category as that of the appellant as the entire stand of those two writ petitioners, namely, Md. Rizwan Ansari and Md. Basad Raza, was that they belonged to OBC category whereas their cases had been considered under the general category. In the absence of clear-cut facts of their cases with regard to their applications, it is not open to the appellant to rely upon their cases as similar to that of the writ petitioners. 9. Learned counsel has also sought to place reliance on the decision of the Apex Court in the case of Vijay Kumar Sharma and others vs. Chairman, School Service Commission and others : (2001) 4 SCC 289 , paragraph-8 of which is quoted below : “Appellant 1 belongs to the OBC Category. For reasons best known to the respondents, even though the life of the panel for General Category has been extended to 2.2.2002, the same has not been done for the panel of the OBC Category. For reasons best known to the respondents, even though the life of the panel for General Category has been extended to 2.2.2002, the same has not been done for the panel of the OBC Category. It has been pointed out to us that in the OBC Category there were vacancies, yet Appellant 1 was not appointed and the panel was allowed to lapse. We see no justification for not appointing Appellant 1 when vacancies were available. We also see no justification for not extending the panel life of the OBC Category. We, therefore, direct that Appellant 1 be appointed against the vacancies which are available in the OBC Category.” 10. The said decision is of no avail to the appellant as in the said case three of the four appellants before the Supreme Court were considered as empanelled candidates and so far as appellant No.1 of that case was concerned, he belonged to the OBC category and it was held that the respondents were not justified in not extending the panel life of the OBC category when in the identical situation they had done so with regard to the general category. No such issue arises in the present matter as the writ petitioner appellant is not an empanelled candidate. 11. For the aforesaid reasons, the appeal is dismissed.