1 Lrs IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION WRIT PETITION No.10147/2009 Shri Atul Chandrakant Manurkar & ors ..Petitioners. vs. The Maharashtra State Electricity Transmission Co.Ltd and ors. ..Respondents. Mr G.S.Godbole with Nitin Mulye, Advocates for the petitioners. Mrs A.R.S.Baxi, A.G.P., for Respondent Nos. 1 and 2. CORAM: D.K. DESHMUKH AND A.R.JOSHI,JJ DATED: 14TH JANUARY,2010 P.C.:- 1. Rule. Returnable forthwith. Heard finally by consent of parties. 2 2. The petitioners are in the service of Respondent No.1. By this petition the petitioners are making a grievance that the written examination held pursuant to the notification dated 27.2.2009 has been wrongly cancelled. A circular No.152 was issued by Respondent No.2. It was stated therein that as per the Administrative Circular No.143 dated 16.2.2009, 25% posts of Executive Engineer (Transmission/Civil) and Deputy Executive Engineer (Transmission/Civil) are to be filled from amongst the degree holders. The selection for these posts is to be made on the basis of academic qualification, performance apprisals (ACRs), marks obtained in written test and interview. It was stated in the Circular that for the purpose of selection, out of 100 marks 60 marks are allotted for the Written Test, 10 marks for Qualification, 15 marks for ACRs, 5 marks for Experience and 10 marks for Personal Interview. Pursuant to this Circular written examinations were held on 14.6.2009. Results of that examinations were not published. By issuing Circular dated 16.11.2009 respondent no.2 cancelled the written examinations. The petitioners have made a grievance about cancellation of the written examination in this petition. The respondents have filed a reply. What is 3 stated in paragraph 14 of the affidavit is relevant. It reads as under: 14. I state and submit that after the issuance of Administrative Circular No.152 these Respondents have received many representations from the graduate Engineers. They objected the procedure on the following grounds:- 1. Allocation of additional 10 marks to post graduate Engineer; ii) Marks allotted for work experience/ iii) Allocation of 15 marks for Annual Confidential Report. I state that they objected and contended that the additional 10 marks in the written examination to the post graduate candidate was against the Doctrine Natural Justice, Right to Equality and equality of opportunities in the matter of public employment. These allocation of additional 10 marks severely hampered the chances of graduate Engineer who scored more marks in written test. The post graduate employees are already granted one additional increment on acquiring post graduate qualification therefore, they should not be granted any additional benefit. In the objections, it was contended that the allocation of 5 marks for work experience restricting to Deputy E.E.,or I.E., who have more than 15/10 4 years experience deprives the candidate having less than 15/10 years experience, further on issue granting 15 marks for Annual Confidential Report it was contended that the C.R. Writing are of subjective nature and does not reflect to prove capability of candidates hence, the said representation requested not to implement the Administrative Circular No. 152. I state that the objections raised are required to be considered hence the same are under the consideration of the Respondents. 3. Perusal of the above quoted paragraph shows that the complaints that were received, were against the Administrative circular No.152. Then in paragraph No.16 the respondents have dealt with representations that were received. Paragraph No.16 reads as under. 16. With reference to paragraph No.2U of the petition, I state that these Respondents have received many representations from the individual as well as Subordinate Engineer Association for issuance of the Administrative Circular No.152. The broad issues raised in the said Representation is as under:- i. Post Graduate Engineers may not be given 10 marks; 5 ii.Post Graduate Engineers should be given 10 marks or 25% quota may be earmarked separately; iii.ACRs may not be considered as those are subjective and selection may be done only on the basis of marks obtained in the written test. iv.Pro-rata marks to be given to experience to each candidate; v. Engineers possession MBA qualification should be 10 marks weightage. vi.Ph.D candidates should be given weightage. vii.Diploma holders should be considered. viii.There were alleged instances of copying in examination, exchange of question paper sets between Executive Engineer (Trans) and Dy.E.E. (Trans) mistakes in question hence the report was called from the recruiting agency and it has been admitted by the agency that there was a printing error on the title of the question paper which they have clarified at the beginning of examination. Further there were some printing errors in 3 / 4 questions for which they aggrieved to give full marks. However, the recruiting agency claims that there was no copying as alleged by the some candidates. I state that to consider the aforesaid various issues raised in the Representation the meeting of all Executive Directors and Director on Technical side was called on to elicit the views on the 6 representations issued. I state that the presentation was made on 15.10.2009 to appraise the issue to the Managing Director. I state that the issues raised in the Representation were discussed at length and after considering all the pros and cons and with a view to fair in the process it was decided that to cancel the on going internal notification process in view of contentious issues raised right from the examination to the criteria of allocation of marks etc. Reconduct the examination and review the internal notification process. Further pending re-examination and review of the methodology for selection process for internal notification to fill in existing vacancies by way of departmental promotion to overcome immediate shortage of man power. I state that accordingly Circular No.HRED/Estt./IN/15509 was issued notifying the decision. 4. It is clear from what has been stated above that majority of the complaints were not in relation to the written examination but were only in relation to the manner in which marks have been allotted for the post of graduate degree, confidential reports, experience and personal interview. There is no grievance made about allocation of 60% for written examination. There was only one grievance made about written examination i.e., discussed in paragraph No.16 (viii) of the affidavit of the respondents quoted above. 7 It is further pertinent to be noted that in paragraph No.17 of the affidavit a categorical statement is made: 17. ...I state that these Respondents have neither cancelled nor modified the Administrative Circular No.152. 5. If the respondents have not modified or cancelled the Administrative Circular No.152 then so far as allocation of marks is concerned, there is no change in the policy of the respondents. Then only Objection relevant for cancellation of the written examination is the representation received which is detailed in paragraph No.16 (viii) of the affidavit. Perusal of that shows that so far as instances of copying are concerned, the agency who held the examination has denied that there was any instance of copying. There is no statement made in the affidavit that the respondents have found that the claim made by the agency conducting examination that there was no copying, is wrong. The second allegation against the written examination is that there was a mistake in question paper, that there was a printing error in the title of the question paper and that mistake was clarified to the examinees at the beginning of the examination itself. 6. It is also said that there was printing errors in 8 three to four questions for which the examination conducting agency has agreed to give full marks to the candidates. It is not the case of the respondents that the measures adopted by the examination conducting agency are not enough to remedy the grievances made against the written examination. Therefore, it appears that in so far as conducting of the written examination is concerned, there was hardly any grievance made. Major grievance was about allocation of marks for graduate qualification etc. So far as that part of the representation is concerned that representation has been rejected by the respondent as it is clear from the statement made in paragraph No.17 which we have quoted above. The allocation of marks for post graduate qualification etc., is done by Administrative Circular No.152. Thus, we find that there was no reason for the respondents to cancel the written examination while keeping the Administrative Circular No.152 intact. Therefore, we find that the petitioners are justified in making the grievance against the Circular dated 16.11.2009 by which written examination has been cancelled. The petition therefore succeeds and is allowed. ORDER: Rule is made absolute in terms of prayer 9 clause (b) only in so far as that Circular cancels the written examination. No order as to cost. The learned counsel appearing for the petitioners sought leave to delete prayer clause (d) with liberty to make representation to the respondents. Leave granted with the aforesaid liberty. (D.K. DESHMUKH,J) (A.R.JOSHI,J)