1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY NAGPUR BENCH : NAGPUR WRIT PETITION NO.517 OF 2008 (Santosh s/o Marotrao Jakwad vs. State and another) ___________________________________________________________________ Office Notes, Office Memoranda of Coram, appearances, Court's orders Court's or Judge's orders or directions and Registrar's orders. CORAM : D.D. SINHA AND P.B. VARALE, JJ. DATED : SEPTEMBER 9, 2008 Heard Shri Mirza, learned Counsel for the petitioner, and Shri Deshpande, learned Assistant Government Pleader for the respondents. Shri Mirza, learned Counsel for the petitioner, states that in the instant petition, grievance of the petitioner is in respect of filling up the posts of Police Constable by the respondents. It is submitted that so far as NT-B category is concerned, there were three posts, out of which two posts were reserved for NT-B male category and one for NT-B female category. It is contended that in view of Government Resolution dated 25.5.2001, particularly in view of Clause (7), if a lady candidate is not available, then in that case, the said post is required to be filled in by 2 appointing male candidate belonging to the said category, i.e. NT-B. It is submitted that in the instant case, since female candidate was not available, the respondents ought to have appointed the petitioner, who is male and belongs to NT-B category instead of appointing somebody, who is an ex-serviceman and does not belong to NT-B category. Shri Deshpande, learned Assistant Government Pleader for the respondents, states that out of 129 posts, three posts were reserved for the candidates belonging to NT-B category and they were required to be filled in as per the vertical reservation. It is contended that for the said three posts, horizontal reservation was required to be carved out as per percentage given in this regard. Hence, one post was required to be filled in from the woman category and since woman candidate belonging to NT-B category was not available, the said post was given as per horizontal reservation to ex-serviceman (male). It is further contended by the learned Assistant Government Pleader that there are four categories included in the special/horizontal reservation : 3 (i) Ex-serviceman (retired from Military Service), (ii) Project Affected/Earthquake affected, (iii) Handicapped and (iv) Women. It is submitted that since woman candidate was not available, person belonging to ex-serviceman category was appointed. We have considered the contentions of the learned Counsel for the parties. In the backdrop of the above referred facts, it is evident that special/ horizontal reservation consists of four categories and one post was required to be filled in from the `woman' category. As per the aforesaid Government Resolution, if candidate belonging to woman category is not available, then the post must be filled in from the same category. In the instant case, as we have already observed hereinabove, the horizontal reservation consists of four categories, one of them was `woman'. Since woman candidate was not available, the post has gone to `ex-serviceman' category and, therefore, in our view, procedure adopted by the respondents is just and proper and is also in accordance with law. 4 No case is made out for showing indulgence. The petition is dismissed. JUDGE JUDGE khj