AJN 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION WRIT PETITION NO.6465 OF 2008 Vijaykumar Sambhaji Kamble ... Petitioner Vs. Chairman, District Selection Committee @ Collector, Solapur & Ors. ... Respondents Mr. Dilip Bodke for the petitioner. Mr. Vijay Killedar i/b Nitin Jamdar for respondent 2. Ms. Deepa Kamath for respondent 3. CORAM : SMT. RANJANA DESAI & A.A. SAYED, JJ. DATED : 18TH SEPTEMBER, 2009. P.C.:- 1. In this petition, the petitioner has inter alia, prayed that final selection list dated 1/9/2008 prepared by respondents 1 and 2 in respect of the post of the Agricultural Officer, Zilla Parishad, Solapur be quashed and set aside. AJN 2 2. On 30/3/2007, respondent 4 appointed respondent 3 - Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited, (for short, “the MKCL”) as agency in respect of examination to be conducted for filling up posts in Zilla Parishads. In the Government Resolution dated 30/3/2007, it was provided that respondent 3 will accept the applications from candidates and thereafter scrutinize them and conduct the written examination. The MKCL was to examine the objective type question papers and prepare the merit list and submit it to the Divisional Commissioner or to the Zilla Parishads. While filling the vacant posts in the Zilla Parishad of Class III and Class IV, the written examination and checking of the answer papers was to be done by the MKCL through computer. The MKCL was to prepare the merit list of eligible candidates for interview. 3. On 19/10/2007, the Government resolved to fill up the vacant posts of Class III and Class IV by constituting a District Level Committee under the Chairmanship of the Collector. The Committee was to have 7 members. The AJN 3 Collector was to be the Chairman of the said Committee. Respondent 2 i.e. the Chief Executive Officer was to be a member of the said Committee. 4. Admittedly, for the posts of Agricultural Officer, the written examination carried 180 and oral examination carried 20 marks. 5. On 5/5/2008, respondent 1 issued advertisement in the daily newspaper “Lokmat” inviting applications for the two posts of Agricultural Officers. In pursuance to the said application, on 11/6/2008, the petitioner applied for the post of Agricultural Officer in the prescribed format in the Scheduled Caste category through the authorized training centre of the MKCL. On 16/6/2008, respondent 3 issued hall ticket to the petitioner. Written examination was conducted on 22/6/2008. The petitioner appeared for the said examination. The MKCL examined the answer sheets and prepared the merit list and declared the same on 1/7/2008 in the newspaper “Lokmat”. The petitioner was AJN 4 shown to have qualified for the interview. He was requested to remain present for the oral interview at 9.00 a.m. on 4/7/2008 at the Collector’s Office, Solapur for the interview. The petitioner appeared for the oral interview before the District Level Committee of which the Collector was the Chairman. Thereafter, respondent 1 prepared the final selection list of the selected candidates. The petitioner was shown to have got 124.44 marks out of 200 marks. In written examination, he got 115 marks and in the interview he got 9.44 marks. 6. On 30/7/2008, the petitioner received a letter from the Agricultural Development Officer, Zilla Parishad, Solapur informing him that he has been finally selected for the post of Agricultural Officer, Zilla Parishad, Solapur. The petitioner was asked to submit certain documents. It is the petitioner’s case that he has submitted the said documents on 4/8/2008. According to the petitioner, he was waiting for his order of appointment. However, in the meantime, respondent 2 published a public declaration in AJN 5 the daily newspaper “Lokmat” dated 29/8/2008 declaring a fresh merit list of the eligible candidates who qualified for the interview. It was stated in the advertisement that the candidates who had already been interviewed will not be again interviewed. On 1/9/2008, respondents 1 and 2 held interview of the candidates who had been declared eligible for interview in the fresh merit list. In the second merit list, which was prepared by respondent 2, respondent 5 was declared to be finally selected with total 128.44 marks out of 200 marks. Being aggrieved by the above, the petitioner has approached this court. 7. It may be stated that the exercise of issuing a fresh merit list was required to be carried out due to some computer bug which was detected which gave rise to discrepancy in the marking of the answer papers in the initial list. In companion writ petitions being Writ Petition Nos.5807 of 2008 and 5916 of 2008, in view of the conflicting results declared by the MKCL, the Division Bench of this court (S.B. Mhase & D.B. Bhosale, JJ.) on 24/2/2009 AJN 6 appointed Mr. Belosay, special counsel to manually examine all papers again to find out whether the results of the fresh merit list declared by the MKCL were correct. In tune with that order on 21/8/2009, we had appointed Mr. Belosay, learned counsel to examine all papers and compare them with the model answer books and find out whether the results declared by the MKCL are proper. The operative part of our order reads thus : 2. We, therefore, direct respondent 2 – Zilla Parishad, Solapur, and other respective bodies to submit all the original question papers, answer books and model answer books in respect of the post of agricultural officers. Mr. K.R. Belosay is appointed to examine all the 25 papers in comparison with the model answer books and find out whether the results declared by the Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited are proper. Mr. Belosay shall prepare his own mark list and submit his report to this court. Respondent 2 shall submit the papers to Mr. Belosay. Mr. Belosay is requested to inform respondent 2 a date which is convenient to him. 3. The Commissioner of Pune Division shall hand over the model answer books to Mr. Belosay for the purpose of examining the papers. The fees of Mr. Belosay are AJN 7 quantified at Rs.10,000/-, which shall be borne by Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited. Mr. Belosay to submit his report to this court on 11/9/2009. Further appropriate orders will be passed on that day. 8. Accordingly, Mr. Belosay has conducted the entire exercise and has submitted his report to us which is dated 11/9/2009. The report indicates that there is no change in the marks obtained by the petitioner in the written examination. It appears that the petitioner got 9.44 marks out of 20 marks in the oral examination. After fresh merit list was declared, since his interview was already taken, he was not called for interview. Respondent 5 secured 115 marks in the written examination. Therefore, he was called for interview and in the interview he got 13.44 marks. The grievance of the petitioner is that he should have also been called for interview and had the same Committee interviewed him, he would have perhaps got more marks. We are not impressed by this submission of learned counsel. Admittedly, the constitution of the Committee was not drastically changed. The members of the Committee AJN 8 remained the same except that the earlier Committee was headed by the Collector. The fresh interview was held under the Chairmanship of Additional Collector. In the circumstances, in our opinion, this is not a fit case where the entire merit list deserves to be quashed. It is pertinent to note that the cut-off marks for the post of Agricultural Officer was 128.44. The petitioner does not, therefore, qualify for the said post. In fact, he was third in the list. Hence, there is no merit in the petition. The petition will have to be dismissed. 9. At this stage, we must note that learned counsel for the petitioner made a grievance that the model answer keys were not accurate. They were faulty. This contention is not raised in the petition and, hence, we did not allow him to raise it. If any remedy is open to him, the petitioner may adopt it. We make it clear that we have not expressed any opinion on this aspect and this cannot be treated as permission given by this court to agitate the said point. It is unfortunate that Mr. Belosay’s costs are not yet paid by the AJN 9 MKCL. We are unhappy about it. Ms. Kamat prays for time to make payment of costs to Mr. Belosay. As a last chance, we grant her two weeks’ time to pay costs of Mr. Belosay. 10. The petition is dismissed. [SMT. RANJANA DESAI, J.] [A.A. SAYED, J.]