Research › Search › Judgment

Jharkhand High Court · body

2018 DIGILAW 71 (JHR)

Parwati Nag v. State of Jharkhand

2018-01-10

PRAMATH PATNAIK

body2018
JUDGMENT : Pramath Patnaik, J. In the accompanied writ application, the petitioner has, inter alia, prayed for direction upon the respondents to appoint her on the post of the Police Constable in pursuance to the Advertisement No. 1/2004. 2. The brief facts, leading to filing of the writ application, is that by virtue of marriage of the petitioner with one Durga Charan Nag belonging to the Scheduled Tribe, a caste certificate was issued under the signature of the Block Development Officer, Jamshedpur, vide Certificate No. 5060, dated 29.11.2003 in which she was shown to be a member of the Scheduled Tribe as per Annexure-1 to the writ application. Advertisement No. 1 of 2004 was published in daily newspaper 'Prabhat Khabar', inviting applications from candidates, who were 7th pass for appointment of altogether 12541 posts of the Jharkhand Police Constable and the last date was fixed on 15.2.2004. In pursuance to the said advertisement, the petitioner applied for the same post of the Constable for East Singhbhum District for which there were 519 vacancies. In pursuance to her application, the petitioner got the acknowledgement receipt and the Roll Number. Thereafter, she appeared in the physical as well as written tests conducted by the respondents and she was declared successful in the tests by the Selection Board and accordingly, a merit list of all successful Home Guard candidates was published and the name of the petitioner appeared in Column No. 1 of the merit list for East Singhbhum as per Annexure-6 to the writ application. Thereafter, the petitioner received the call letter from the Respondent No.5, whereby she was directed to appear on 28.4.2005 at Police Centre, Jamshedpur along with required original documents for verification of the certificate and for Medical Test. In the said letter, it was mentioned that during medical test, if she is found fit, she will be appointed and sent for training as evident from Annexure-7 to the writ petition and the petitioner has appeared on 28.4.2005 before the respondents with all the required documents and during verification of her certificates, her entire documents were found to be genuine and she was found medically fit. Due to inaction on the part of the respondents in not appointing the petitioner on the post of Constable, the petitioner has been constrained to knock the door of this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India for redressal of her grievances. 3. Learned senior counsel for the petitioner has submitted with vehemence that the action of the respondents in not appointing the petitioner on the post of constable, amounts to arbitrary and illegal action in spite of the fact that the petitioner has been found successful in her physical and written test. Learned senior counsel further submits that the action of the respondents is violative of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India. 4. Controverting the averments made in the writ application, a counter affidavit has been filed by the respondent no. 4. In the counter affidavit, it has been submitted that though the petitioner was declared as a successful candidate for the post of the Constable in the Home Guard under reservation quota of Scheduled Tribe candidate and subsequently, after verification, it was revealed that the petitioner before marriage belonged to general category and subsequently, petitioner got married to a man, who belonged to the Scheduled Tribe category and i.e. the reason, for which the petitioner was not appointed, even after her selection. In this regard, the Sergeant Major, Police Line, Jamshedpur, issued a letter vide Memo dated 22.7.2017, which has been annexed as Annexure-A to the counter affidavit. 5. A supplementary counter affidavit on behalf of the Respondent No. 4 has been filed in pursuance to the order dated 29.8.2017 of this Court. In the said affidavit, it has been stated and submitted that according to the Merit List, the last selected candidate of General Category obtained total marks is 7 and the total marks obtained by the last candidate of the S.T. category is 6 and the petitioner has obtained 8 marks total, which is mentioned in the merit list and the said letter dated 5.10.2017 has been annexed as Annexure-A to the supplementary counter affidavit. 5A. 5A. Learned counsel for the Respondent-State has vociferously submitted that the petitioner is not entitled to any equitable relief in view of the fact that by virtue of the marriage, caste of a candidate does not undergo change and even though, the petitioner was of a general category candidate by virtue of a marriage to a Scheduled Tribe, her caste could not have been changed. Moreover, once she has availed the benefit of applying under the Scheduled Tribe category, her case cannot be considered under the general category. 6. After giving my anxious consideration to the rivalized submissions and on perusal of the counter affidavit, I am of the considered view that the petitioner has not been able to make out a case for interference, in view of the following facts and reasons:- (i) Though the petitioner becomes a successful candidate, having cleared the physical and written test, in pursuance to the Advertisement No. 1 of 2004, her selection was subject to verification of the documents. After verification of the documents, it was found out that the petitioner, who was a general category candidate, got married to a Scheduled Tribe candidate and by virtue of her marriage, her caste was changed and she was treated as a S.T. category candidate and she has applied under the S.T. category candidates. In that view of the matter, the respondents-authorities have not considered forgiving appointment to the petitioner on the post of the Police Constable. No fault can be found with the decision of the respondents in not selecting the petitioner, as there is absolutely no illegality, impropriety or infirmity in the decision of the respondents. Moreover, the law is fairly well-settled that the selected candidate does not have any vested or indefeasible right for appointment. (ii) Apart from the aforesaid legal dictum by the Hon'ble Apex Court, once the petitioner applied under the Scheduled Tribe category, though illegally obtained the Scheduled Tribe certificate, she could not have been considered under General category or under the Scheduled Tribe category, because of spurious documents, which have not been accepted by the respondents. 7. In view of the aforesaid reasons, this Court is not inclined to accede to the prayer of the petitioner. Accordingly, this writ petition is dismissed being devoid of any merit.