Civil Writ Petition No.12867 of 2008 : 1 : IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Date of Decision: September 07, 2011 Rakesh Kumar ...Petitioner Versus The State of Haryana & others ...Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE RANJIT SINGH 1. Whether Reporters of local papers 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? Present: Mr.R.N.Lohan, Advocate, for the petitioner. Mr.Harish Rathee, Sr.DAG, Haryana, for the State. Mr.S.S.Brar, Advocate, for respondent Nos.3,4,5,7 to 15, 17 to 20, 22, 24, 27, 29, 30, 32 & 34. ***** RANJIT SINGH, J. Government Public Relation and Cultural Affairs Department, Haryana invited applications for 25 posts of Assistant Public Relation Officers on 18.11.2007. A Committee was constituted to conduct the interviews of the candidates. The petitioner, being eligible and qualified, submitted his application and appeared for interview on 9.12.2007. 226 candidates had applied and appeared before the Committee, out of which 32 candidates were selected for the post of Assistant Public Relation Officer. Civil Writ Petition No.12867 of 2008 : 2 : The grievance of the petitioner is that the selection was not done on the basis of merit and the eligibility criteria was also ignored. It is also stated that the appointment of respondent Nos.3 to 34 was made due to some extraneous considerations. The petitioner accordingly has filed this writ petition to challenge the selection and appointment of the private respondents. One of the grounds, which was advanced by the counsel for the petitioner when notice of motion was issued, was that the persons appointed did not fulfill the criteria of experience. In response to notice, reply has been filed. Mr.Rathee would refer to the reply filed by Additional Director-II, Information and Public Relations Department on behalf of respondent Nos.1 & 2. It is stated in the reply that because of unreasonable nature of the experience as prescribed, the requirement of experience was relaxed after taking approval from the State Government. The reasons given in this regard are that at the time of registration, it was noticed by the Committee that the experience certificates attached by the candidates were not as per the requirement of the department. The requirement of experience as given in the advertisement was for a candidate to have one year experience in a Publicity Organisation of Union or State Government on a post of comparable responsibility or one year experience as full time correspondent or an Editor or Sub Editor of weekly newspaper or whole time correspondent in a news agency. No honorary or part time experience was to be counted. In this background, it was noticed that the correspondents working in the news agencies would not come to apply for a post on contract basis and that too when it was initially advertised for a period of six Civil Writ Petition No.12867 of 2008 : 3 : months only. It is stated that a person working on regular basis would not be interested to leave the regular job and apply for a job on contract basis. Since the candidates did not fulfill the condition of experience, more particularly, the whole time experience in a newspaper having requisite circulation, it was decided on the spot to register the candidates, who fulfill the conditions of academic/professional qualifications, subject to Government approval regarding relaxation of experience. The condition of experience for engagement of ADPROs on contract basis was relaxed by the Government on 11.3.2008 and thereafter the persons were engaged on the basis of their merit as per the performance in the interview and the marks obtained in the selection criteria. The grievance of the petitioner is that the relaxation was given subsequent to the selection. The stand in the reply is that the selection was done subject to the approval being granted by the Government. Since the Government had granted the approval and had relaxed the experience criteria, the same was uniformly made applicable to all the candidates. It would have been rather more appropriate for the respondents to invite fresh applications, once the decision was taken to relax the condition of experience. In any case, there was sufficient number of candidates already available for the posts advertised and the reason for which the condition of experience was relaxed does not sound unreasonable. The justification offered appears reasonable. No person, who is working on a regular post or had been having an experience on a regular post of more than a year with a reputed newspaper or a news agency etc. would be interested in taking a contractual employment. Contractual Civil Writ Petition No.12867 of 2008 : 4 : employment, otherwise also, could be terminated at any time. The submission by the counsel for the petitioner that though appointed in the year 2007 but the appointments have been continued would not make the status of job to be of permanent nature. The appointments would remain contractual employments. Apart from the submission that the condition of qualification was relaxed, nothing is urged to show that the merit was sacrificed. I am, thus, not inclined to interfere in exercise of writ jurisdiction. The writ petition is accordingly dismissed. September 07, 2011 ( RANJIT SINGH ) ramesh JUDGE