IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA CWJC No.7445 of 2008 Niraj Kumar, S/O-Baijnath Prasad, resident of Mohalla-Hathsarganj, P.S.- Hajipur Town, District-Vaishali. ……..Petitioner Versus 1. The Indian Oil Corporation Ltd, through its Managing Director, G-9, Ali Yavar Jung Marg, Bandra(East), Mumbai, India. 2. The General Manager, Indian Oil Corporation Ltd, Bihar State Office, Jai Prakash Bhawan, Patna-1. 3. The Area Manager, Indian Oil Corporation Ltd., Indiane Area Office, shashi Bhawan, Exhibition Road, Patna. 4. The Dealer Selection Committee, Patna, Indian Oil Corporation Ltd., through Area Manager, 2nd Floor, Bihar Industrial Associate Building, Sinha Libarary Road, Bihar. 5. Alok Ranjan Singh, S/O-Late Maheshwar Prasad Singh, Resident of Mohalla-Indrapuri, P.S.-Shastrinagar, District-Patna. ………Respondents. ----------- For the Petitioner : Sri. N.K.Agrawal, Sr. Adv : Sri. Vijay Anand, Adv For the Respondents : Sri. K.D. Chatterjee, Adv : Sri. Amlesh Kumar Verma, Adv For the Respondent NO. 5 : Sri. Jitendra Singh, Sr. Adv : Sri. Bindhyachal Singh, Adv. 07. 26.03.2009 The petitioner was a candidate for seeking appointment for distributorship of LPG Gas under the Indian Oil Corporation Limited for Lalganj in the District of Vaishali. The advertisements were issued pursuant to which interviews were held in December, 2003. Petitioner was empanelled as the first candidate and one Alok Ranjan Singh who is now Respondent No. 5 in the present writ application was empanelled as the 2 second amongst the others. For almost one and half years thereafter when the petitioner did not receive letter of intent for establishing the distributorship, he filed a writ petition being C.W.J.C. No. 7462 of 2005 for issuance of direction to the Indian Oil Corporation to proceed further in the matter. While the said writ petition was pending, the said Alok Ranjan Singh who was the second empanelled candidate filed C.W.J.C. No. 10713 of 2006 challenging the selection of petitioner as the first empanelled candidate. It appears that the two writ petitions were taken up together and ultimately disposed of by order dated 28.01.2007(Annexure-1 to this writ petition). In the said writ application Indian Oil Corporation which is Respondent No. 1 appeared and filed counter affidavit in which they stated that it has been brought to their notice that the marks as awarded in the interviews were not as per the guidelines prescribed. The Corporation as such took a decision to cancel the interviews. They then conducted a second round of interview. The result of which were awaited. In view of this, the aforesaid two writ petitions were dismissed. First on the ground that the panel so constituted was not in accordance with the guidelines and the second being premature as the 3 results of the second interview were still awaited. But while dismissing the writ petition, a grievance of the learned counsel for the first writ petitioner, petitioner before this Court was noticed with regard to evaluating certain papers with respect to land. The grievance was made that petitioner had produced certain documents with regard to purchase of land which were not likely to be referred to by the interview Board. This Court only directed the Respondents to look into this matter and only on proper consideration of petitioner’s documents, final results be published in accordance with law. Final results having been published, now petitioner was empanelled much below in sixth position and the said Alok Ranjan Singh who is Respondent No. 5 in the present writ petition was empanelled as the first candidate. This being the position petitioner has now challenged the selection process and the results as published. Mr. N.K. Agrawal learned senior counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner submits that the mistakes which were committed by the Interview Board on the first occasion have been repeated by the second Interview Board again. Elaborating this, he has submitted that the first Interview Board had not taken 4 into account certain papers with regard to purchase of land which grievance was noted while disposing of the first writ petition itself. The second Interview Board also ignored the same. Thus the process stood vitiated. The second ground taken was that Respondent No. 5 is not the resident of Lalganj rather he is resident of Patna. Heard the parties. With the consent of the parties, as pleadings are complete, the writ petition is disposed of at this stage itself. So far as first point is concerned, initially it appeared to attract the attention of this Court. But on greater scrutiny it merits no consideration. It is not in dispute that when petitioner originally filed his application in respect of the land in question, he had given papers only showing to be lessee of the land. At the time of first interview when he was asked to produce original papers in support of paper submitted at the time of application, he had produced paper showing purchase of land. He wanted the Interview Board to take into consideration the ownership of land as per sale deed subsequently obtained and grant marks accordingly which were higher than that if he was a lessee. Petitioner was not obliged by the first Interview Board and that is why he had made a 5 grievance of it in the first writ petition wherein this Court observed that it would be considered in accordance with law and the matter would be taken into consideration accordingly. Mr. K.D. Chatterjee, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the Indian Oil Corporation submitted that no fresh documents could be taken into account at the stage of Interview to better or enhance the position of the candidate. At the time of Interview only those documents could be taken into account, copies of which were filed along with the application. In my view, Mr. Chatterjee is correct, for a simple reason that once a party is required to make an application and lay claims on basis of certain documents knowingfully well that the documents have to be evaluated, accordingly he makes an application then his right to be considered crystallizes on the day the application is made and that can not be altered subsequently because if that is permitted then all candidates would be changing their basic papers at their free will, till the time of Interview. The cut off is the date when application is filed and subsequent documents can not be looked into. It was next submitted that such a provision was made in guidelines recently issued but were not 6 there earlier. The answer is simple. What was implicit earlier has now been made explicit and it does not mean that this was never required by the law. Thus this issue merits not consideration. The second is with regard to the residence of Respondent No. 5. This also can not be accepted in the application itself. The Respondent No. 5 has annexed a copy of residence certificate granted by the Block Development Officer, Lalganj. To me, it appears that submission is based on a wrong premise. It is based on the premise that a person can have only one residence. In present times that is not correct nor was it so earlier. A person can have multiple residences. A residence is a place where a person resides. A person may have his residence at a number of places because he may be required to change the place because of his employment, because of his business but that does not take away the place of his residence where he originally belonged to. Thus in my view, the writ petition merits no consideration and is dismissed accordingly. Shageer (Navaniti Prasad Singh, J)