:1: IN IN IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY APPELLATE SIDE CIVIL JURISDICTION WRIT PETITION NO.6950 OF 2006 Shri. Kailash K. Patil and ors. ..Petitioners. Vs. State of Maharashtra and anr. ..Respondents. Mr.V.B. Naik for the Petitioners. Mr.S.P.Thorat for the Respondent No.3. Mr.P.P.Kakade, AGP. for the Respondent Nos.7 and 8. CORAM: S.B. MHASE & R.S. MOHITE, JJ. DATE : 10th April, 2007 P.C. P.C. P.C. 1. Heard. 2. The petitioners are temporary employees of the Zilla Parishad working in Malaria Department. They were to be selected for an appointment to the post of Health workers (Male). For the said purpose, the persons are to be selected from the temporary seasonal employees of which the seniority list has been already maintained. The Zilla Parishad is governed by the recruitment rules. Those rules were amended by notification dated 4.6.2003 by putting draft rules and thereafter rules were finalised. The rule provides for holding written departmental examination of the temporary seasonal employees from whom the selection for the post of Health worker is to be made. The Rule (4) of the said Notification provides that a person appointed by :2: promotion or nomination shall be required to pass the departmental examination and examination in Hindi and Marathi according to the rules made in that behalf, unless he has already passed, or has been exempted from passing those examinations. The petitioners are from the category of nomination and, therefore, it was obligatory on the part of the petitioners to undergo the departmental examination. It is to be noted that the petitioners had already appeared for the said departmental examination, however, they failed. The persons who were selected by the Zilla Parishad are the persons who had succeeded in the departmental examination. However, it appears that the petitioners initially had undergone the process of selection and they failed in the said selection process. The petitioners have failed to challenge the selection process before appearing for the departmental examination and now seek to challenge the said selection process under Article 226. Since the petitioners had participated in the selection process, the law requires that equal opportunity should be offered to the petitioners along with the similarly situated persons. The said opportunity had been offered to them and therefore, we refrain to entertain the Petition. Petition is, therefore, rejected. 3. The learned counsel for the petitioners at this :3: stage tried to point out that certain persons who were selected were also age-barred. As against this, he makes a grievance that the petitioners have not recruited as they were age-barred. What we want to observe is that the petitioners were not selected as they failed in the written departmental examination. Had the petitioners have been successful in the written examination they could have been considered for the post of Health Worker along with the other persons but since they were not equally situated with the age barred persons selected, their case for condonation of age bar cannot be considered. He further tried to persuade this court that the case of age bar should not be raised as against the petitioners while making any subsequent recruitment from the temporary employees. That question will have to be considered at that time because whether to grant exemption to the petitioners or not has to be considered by the Zilla Parishad under the given circumstances and there cannot be universal rules. Therefore, we do not make any observation in this respect at this stage. We only state that the Petition is liable to be rejected and accordingly rejected. (R.S. MOHITE, J.) (S.B. MHASE, J.) :4: