IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA CWJC No.3929 of 2001 Bimla Kumari Sinha daughter of Awadhesh Kumar Sinha, resident of Mohalla- Jakkanpur New Area, East of Kannu Lal Road, P.O. and P.S. Jakkanpur, District-Patna. . ..….Petitioner Versus 1. The State Of Bihar 2. The Chairman, Vidyalaya Seva Board, Bihar, BISCOMAUN Tower, Gandhi Maidan, Patna. 3. The Secretary, Vidyalaya Seva Board, Bihar, BISCOMAUN Tower, Gandhi Maidan, Patna. 4. The Education Commissioner-cum-Secretary, Secondary Education, Bihar, Patna. 5. The Secretary, Personnel & Administrative Reforms Department, Government of Bihar, Patna. 6. The Director, Secondary Education, Bihar, Patna. …..Respondents ----------- For the petitioner : Mr. Y. V. Giri, Sr. Advocate with Mr. Raju Giri, Advocate For the State : Mr. Sunil Kumar Mandal, SC 15 with Mr. Bipin Kumar, A.C. to SC 15 ---------- 5/ 10.04.2009 Heard learned counsel for the petitioner and the State. The relief for appointment on the post of Assistant Teacher in pursuance of interview conducted by the Vidyalaya Sewa Board, Bihar, is based on a merit panel stated to have been prepared on 11.2.1997. The writ petition has been filed on 23.3.2001. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that no life for the panel is prescribed in the law. He next relies upon an order of this court dated 24.2.1998 in CWJC No.1321 of 1998 preferred by certain others in which this Court observed that the panel may not be treated to have lapsed until further orders of the court. He submits that the writ petition is still pending. He next submitted that the petitioner is senior in the merit panel to the petitioner in - 2 - CWJC No.1321 of 1998. The last submission is that present writ application has been entertained by the court and the respondents have filed counter affidavit. The question of any delay in the institution of the writ application vis-a-vis creation of the panel does not arise. Learned counsel for the respondents apart from raising other issues with regard to the secondary panel in which the name of the petitioner has been recommended has also urged that the in any event of the matter, the life of the panel has lapsed and new rules of appointment have been prepared in 2006. This Court does not consider it necessary to deal with the other objections of a secondary panel on behalf of the State, in view of the short question with regard to the life of the panel on which this writ application can easily be disposed off. The law stands settled by the Supreme Court in (2006) 8 SCC 686 (Union of India and others Vs. B. Valluvan and others) that even where no life of panel is prescribed, it cannot be beyond a period of one year. Any panel having a life beyond one year shall be violative of Article 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India, holding at paragraph 17 as follows: “17. The life of a panel ordinarily is one year. The same can be extended only by the State and that too if the statutory rule permits it to do so. The High Court ordinarily would not extend the life of a panel. Once a panel stands exhausted upon filling up of all the posts, the question of enforcing a future panel would not arise. It was for the State to accept the said recommendations of the Selection Committee or reject the same. As has been noticed hereinbefore, all notified vacancies as also the - 3 - vacancy which arose in 2000 had also been filled up. As the future vacancy had already been filed up in the year 2000, the question of referring back to the panel prepared in the year 1999 did not arise. The impugned judgment, therefore, cannot be sustained.” To the same effect is the judgment of the Supreme Court (2007) 8 SCC 161 (State of Rajasthan and others Vs. Jagdish Chopra). The relevant extract of paragraph 9 is as follows: “………..Even otherwise, in absence of any rule, ordinary period of validity of select list should be one year. In State of Bihar V. Amrendra Kumar Mishra this Court opined: “9. In the aforementioned situation, in our opinion, he did not have any legal right to be appointed. Life of a penal, it is well known, remains valid for a year. Once it lapses, unless an appropriate order is issued by the State, no appointment can be made out of the said panel.” The petitioners in CWJC No. 1321 of 1998 appear to have come to this Court within the life of the panel. The panel is dated 11.2.1997 and the interim order is dated 24.2.1998. The petitioner does not fall in that category. The law stands equally well settled that merely because certain orders may have been passed in a connected writ application moved by others well within time, cannot be a ground to demand similar treatment by others, who have not been vigilant. This delay on their part shall be sufficient ground to deny them the same relief. This court arrives at the conclusion that the interim order, if any, dated 24.2.1998 is confined to the petitioners thereunder. If a person higher in the panel does not want to ventilate his grievance for more than a reasonable period of time, this court does not find - 4 - substance in the argument that notwithstanding the indolence on his part, he still entitled to get the benefit of the same by permitting him to interfere in the matter at a belated stage. In (2007) 2 SCC 725 (A.P. Steel Re-Rolling Mill Ltd. Vs. State of Kerala and others with Victory Papers and Boards India Ltd. Vs. State of Kerala and others) on the issue of grant of similar benefit to an applicant as may have been granted earlier to another, it was held at paragraph 40 as follows: “40. The benefit of a judgment is not extended to a case automatically. While granting relief in a writ petition, the High Court is entitled to consider the fact situation obtaining in each case including the conduct of the petitioner. In doing so, the Court is entitled to take into consideration the fact as to whether the writ petitioner had chosen to sit over the matter and then wake up after the decision of this Court. If it is found that the appellant approached the Court after a long delay, the same may disentitle him to obtain a discretionary relief.” To the same effect is the judgment of the Supreme Court in (2007)12 SCC 779 (Nadia Distt. Primary School Council and another Vs. Sristidhar Biswas and others) observing that those who sit on fence and watch for a favourable order and thereafter wake up to take up the matter, are not entitled to any relief. The court quoted paragraph 13 of the judgment in (2006) (11) SCC 464 (Chairman, U. P. Jal Nigam Vs. Jaswant Singh) as follows: “13. In view of the statement of law as summarized above, the respondents are guilty since the respondents have acquiesced in accepting the retirement and did not challenge the same in time. If they would have been vigilant enough, they could have filed writ petitions as others did in the matter. - 5 - Therefore, whenever it appears that the claimants lost time or whiled it away and did not rise to the occasion in time for filing the writ petitions, then in such cases, the court should be very slow in granting the relief to the incumbent. Secondly, it has also to be taken into consideration the question of acquiescence or waiver on the part of the incumbent whether other parties are going to be prejudiced if the relief is granted………...” Concluding the discussions, the Court at paragraph 11 of the judgment held as follows: “11. In the present case, the panel was prepared in 1980 and the petitioners approached the court in 1989 after the decision in Dibakar Pal. Such persons should not be given any benefit by the court when they allowed more than nine years to elapse. Delay is very significant in matter of granting relief and courts cannot come to the rescue of the persons who are not vigilant of their rights. Therefore, the view taken by the High Court condoning the delay of nine years cannot be countenanced.” Moreover, recently in 2009(2) SCC 479 (S. S. Balu and another Vs. State of Kerala and others), it has been held at paragraph 17 as follows: “17. It is also well- settled principle of law that “delay defeats equity”. The Government Order was issued on 15-1-2002. The appellants did not file any writ application questioning the legality and validity thereof. Only after the writ petitions filed by others were allowed and the State of Kerala preferred an appeal thereagainst, they impleaded themselves as party respondents. It is now a trite law that where the writ petitioner approaches the High Court after a long delay, reliefs prayed for may be denied to them on the ground of delay and laches irrespective of the fact that they are similarly situated to the other candidates who obtain the benefit of the judgment. It is, thus, not possible for us to issue any direction to the - 6 - State of Kerala or the Commission to appoint the appellants at this stage.” This court in the present writ application has only required a counter affidavit to be filed explaining why the panel of 1996 was not given effect to, though the posts remained vacant. The issue in law of a claim based after the life of the panel, still remained to be considered at the time of final disposal of the writ application, is a pure question of law on admitted facts. Arriving at the conclusion that the petitioner has chosen to institute the writ application long after the life of the panel had expired, this court finds no merit in this writ application, which is, accordingly, dismissed. JA/- (Navin Sinha, J.)