IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH C.W.P No.4976 of 2010 Date of Decision:23.9.2011 Rajinder Kumar and others .... Petitioners Versus Haryana Vidhut Prasaran Nigam Limited and others .... Respondents And C.W.P No.16148 of 2011 Date of Decision:23.9.2011 Krishan Kumar and others .... Petitioners Versus Haryana Vidhut Prasaran Nigam Limited and others .... Respondents And C.W.P No.17920 of 2011 Date of Decision:23.9.2011 Rajesh Kumar .... Petitioner Versus Haryana Vidhut Prasaran Nigam Limited and others .... Respondents CORAM: Hon'ble Ms. Justice Nirmaljit Kaur Present: Mr. H.S. Jaswal, Advocate for the petitioners in CWP No.4976 of 2010 and CWP No.17920 of 2011. Mr. B.S. Bairagi, Advocate for the petitioner in CWP No.16148 of 2011. Mr. Mohnish Sharma, Advocate for the respondents. Mr. Ramesh Goyal, Advocate for the respondents. **** 1.Whether Reporters of Local Newspapers may be allowed to see the judgment? 2.To be referred to the Reporters or not? 3.Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest? NIRMALJIT KAUR, J. (Oral) By this common order, C.W.P No.4976 of 2010, C.W.P C.W.P No.4976 of 2010 -2- No.16148 of 2011 and C.W.P No.17920 of 2011 are being decided together as the controversy in all these cases is same. Through the present writ petitions, the petitioners herein are praying for quashing the final selection/order dated 7.10.2009 (P- 6) as well as for issuance of direction to the respondents to appoint them as they have qualified the written test and appeared in the interview on the basis of merit list prepared by the respondents in pursuance to the direction of this Court issued vide its order dated 3.12.2008. The Haryana Electricity Board had invited applications for appointment of ALMs and SAs in the year 1992 but the said selection was set aside. Consequently, fresh advertisement was issued in the year 1996 and 2000 applications were received for 200 posts. It is contended that the petitioners were denied the appointment as the candidates belonging to reserved categories who had found the higher place in the merit lists of General Category were appointed against the post reserved for Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes categories. This Hon'ble Court was pleased to pass the order dated 3.12.2008 and directed the respondents to consider at least 336 reserved categories candidates for the post of Assistant Linemen and 75 reserved candidates for the post of Shift Attendant amongst the candidates of reserved category who may have been ousted as a result of wrongly appointed in reserved category, as per the merit list prepared at that time. It is further contended that in the year 1997, when the selection was made by the respondent/Board the lowest merit was 64 of Scheduled Caste candidates, but now the lowest merit is 69. C.W.P No.4976 of 2010 -3- It is also contended that without inviting any application or representation, their categories were changed and accordingly, appointment has been given to the respondents. Reply has been filed. In para 5 of the said reply, the detail of the bifurcation of reserved category has been mentioned. Further it is evident from para 7 of the written statement that the petitioners obtained less marks than the cut of marks of the selected candidates during the year 1997. The argument that in the year 1997 that when the selection was made by the respondent/Board the lowest merit was 64 of Scheduled Caste candidates, but now the lowest merit is 69 and further the argument that in pursuance to the order dated 3.12.2008 passed by this Court, respondent-Board was asked that reserved category candidates, who were entitled for appointment on the basis of their merit even in the general category, and were offered appointments to reserved candidates as per the merit list prepared at that time out of the posts, which are admittedly lying vacant even today as some of the persons have not joined and the Board should accordingly prepare fresh merit list has no merit as this High Court vide judgment dated 3.12.2008 had directed to give offer of appointment to 336 Nos. ALMs and 75 No. SAs of reserved categories on the basis of merit. However, before the judgment dated 3.12.2008 was implemented by the Haryana Power Utilities, numbers of representations were received from the candidates to place them in their appropriate reserved category. The petitioners too represented for placing them in their appropriate reserved C.W.P No.4976 of 2010 -4- category i.e. from SC-A to SC-B, BC-B to BC-A etc. They also submitted their Castes certificate for their claims. Considering their request, they were placed in appropriate reserved category from SC- A to SC-B and merit list of ALMs prepared in which the cut of marks for the selected candidates in SC-B category reached 69 marks in pursuance to the decision 3.12.2008 passed by this Court. Since, the petitioners have admittedly obtained less marks then 69 i.e. the marks obtained by the candidates selected in the category, the petitioners were not selected in the merit list. Thus in view of the stand taken in the reply as well as taking into account the similar writ petition i.e. CWP No.13451 of 2009, which was relied upon by the petitioner at the time of filing the present writ petition, has also been dismissed vide order dated 8.3.2011, the present petitions are dismissed being devoid of merit. A copy of this order be placed on the connected cases. 23.9.2011 ( NIRMALJIT KAUR ) rajeev JUDGE