IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA LPA No.87 of 2010 SMT.RENU KUMARI, Wife of Vinod Rai, resident of Village-Manik Patti, P.S. Mahnar, District-Vaishali, at present working as Anganbari Sevika, Samastipur Panchayat(then Parmanandpur) under Child Development Project Officer, Mahnar, Vaishali....Respondent no.6/ Appellant. Versus 1. The State of Bihar. 2. The Secretary, Department of Welfare, Government of Bihar,Patna. 3. The District Magistrate, Vaishali. 4. The District Welfare Officer-cum-District Project Officer, Vaishali. 5. The Child Development Project Officer, Mahnar, District-Vaishali. 6. Parwati Devi, wife of Mithilesh Rai, resident of Village-Manik Patti, P.S. Mahanar, District-Vaishali..............................Respondents. ----------- For the Appellant: M/S. Ajay Kumar Thakur and Dudhnath Singh, Advocates. For the State : Mr. Amaresh Kumar, Advocate. For the Respondent No. 6 : M/S. Suresh Pd. Singh No.1 & Vitesh Kumar Singh, Advocates. ----------- 07. 15.04.2010. Heard learned counsel for the appellant, learned counsel for the State and learned counsel appearing on behalf of the respondent no.6. C.W.J.C. No. 8451 of 2003 was filed by the respondent no.6 seeking a direction for appointing her on the post of Anganbari Sevika at Manik Patti Centre, under Gram Panchayat Raj Saran Mathur in Mahnar Block after quashing the order dated 28.11.2002 appointing the appellant on that post. The writ petition itself states that the petitioner was well aware from the letter 2 dated 19.09.2000 of the District Magistrate, Vaishali, appended as Annexure-4 to the writ application that selection to the post of Anganbari Sevika was complete as informed by the Child Development Project Officer, Vaishali, by her letter dated 16.08.2000. It is under this selection that the appellant based her claim to appointment. Despite being aware of the selection of the appellant by letter dated 16.08.2000,the petitioner did not question the same in the writ application or asked for its quashing. The stand that emerges is that the original order has not been challenged and the writ petitioner had sought quashing of the consequential order only. Learned counsel for the appellant submitted that from the letter of the District Magistrate, Vaishali, dated 19.09.2000 it was apparent that selection of Anganbari Sevikas was complete. The implementation of the selection only was stayed in pursuance of the certain complaints allegedly received with regard to alleged illegalities in the appointment. After enquiry, the District Magistrate, Vaishali, was satisfied that there was no 3 illegalities in the selection made in Manik Patti. Formal concurrence for making appointments was then granted on 28.11.2002. It is submitted that once the process of selection had been initiated and completed under an existing rule, the appointments have to be made under those rules. If a frivolous complaint was filed to prevent appointment, any other intervening Rules on 25.09.2001 prescribing a different procedure for selection would not affect the veracity and correctness of the selection already completed under a valid existing Rule. Learned counsel for respondent no.6 submitted that so long that the appointment had not been made it could not be said that the selection process was over. If in the meantime the rules for selection were changed on 25.09.2001, orders for appointment based on any selection process initiated earlier could not have been made on 28.11.2002. Mere selection or empanelment does not vest a right to appointment. Nevertheless such denial has to be for valid and cogent reasons and cannot be fanciful or arbitrary. If ultimately no irregularity/ 4 illegality was found in the selection process after enquiry and a frivolous objection held up the appointment, this Court find its difficult to hold that any intervening rules shall govern to make a de-novo selection mandatory. If the selection was fully in accordance with law and a frivolous complaint was filed, the frivolous complaint would achieve its purpose by stalling the appointment to direct a fresh selection, wholly unjustified, when no illegality was found in the earlier selection. If the selection process itself had not been over and a merit list of candidates which came to be stalled by frivolous objection petition had not been prepared, the selection process could not be said to be over. If the selection process itself had been stayed, the intervening rules of 25.09.2001 would have had full play requiring de novo selection. In the entirety of the facts and circumstances of the case, the original selection of the appellant not having been challenged by the private respondent no.6 in the writ petition despite full knowledge, confining the challenge to the consequential 5 orders only, the selection process being over, merit list having been prepared, appointments stalled by a frivolous objection, this Court is satisfied that the appointment made on 28.11.2002 by a fiction of law for the purpose of present order would be deemed to be an appointment on 16.08.2000. No other ground has been urged to invalidate the selection. It is made clear that the observation of an appointment by fiction of law be deemed to have been made on 16.08.2000, is confined for the purpose of deciding the present controversy only. The appeal is allowed. U.K. (Navin Sinha,J) (Dinesh Kumar Singh,J)