K.Lakshmi vs State Of Kerala & Ors

2. Recruitment to public services often gets embroiled in legal complications and resultant litigation consequently delaying the process of filling up of the vacancies, a feature hardly conducive to public interest. What is disturbing is that recruitment process for appointment to the District Judiciary in the States is also not immune to this phenomenon no matter recruitments are made in consultation with the High Court on the administrative side 1 and at times monitored by them. The present appeal that arises out of an order passed by the High Court of Kerala is one such case where the recruitment process for the post of District and Sessions Judges in the Kerala State Higher Judicial Service was the subject-matter of multiple rounds of litigation. The genesis of the present lis lies in a notification issued by the High Court of Kerala for appointment to the six vacancies in the cadre of District and Sessions Judges by direct recruitment from the Bar. Notification dated 16th April, 2007 inviting applications against those vacancies was followed by a written examination conducted in October 2007 in which as against 960 candidates who applied, only 443 candidates actually took the written examination conducted between 27th to 29th October, 2007. Surprisingly enough only seven candidates qualified in the written examination by securing the minimum qualifying marks specified in paragraph 4 of the recruitment Notification. Out of the seven, one belonged to Scheduled Castes category, three to OBCs and the remaining candidates were from the open merit category.

3. Looking to the number of candidates who had qualified for interview, the Recruitment Committee comprising five senior-most Judges of the High Court was of the view that sufficient number of candidates may not be available to fill up the notified vacancies. The Committee, therefore, resolved to award 20 marks by way of moderation in all the three papers of the written examination to all the candidates who appeared for the examination so that a larger number of candidates qualified in the written examination and became eligible for consideration. Merit list after giving such benefit was prepared and approved by the Recruitment Committee. The result was that against the seven candidates who had previously qualified, 45 candidates became eligible for the viva-voce examination. Two of these candidates namely, Muhammed Raees M and Minu Mathews were, however, excluded from the selection process on the ground that they had secured employment during the interregnum. The exclusion was successfully challenged by the said candidates who were then permitted to participate in the viva-voce examination as well. 3

4. Interviews for the eligible candidates were held in December 2008 and based on the merit so determined, the High Court published a final selection list containing the names of 29 candidates. The select list was prepared by excluding candidates who were less than 35 years of age or more than 45 years as on 1st January, 2007. The age bar, it is noteworthy, was introduced by the amending Kerala Sate Higher Judicial Services Rules which amendment came in June 2008 i.e. after the selection process has commenced. Those who were excluded from consideration on the basis of the amended rules challenged their exclusion in Writ Petition(C) No.2021 of 2009 and connected petitions which were allowed by a Division Bench of the High Court of Kerala with a direction that the selection process be conducted in accordance with the rules as the same were on the date of the issue of the notification inviting applications from the eligible candidates. A revised merit list was accordingly issued comprising 45 names.

8. It was in the above backdrop that Writ Petition No. 20683 of 2009 filed by the appellant to challenge the selection process came up for hearing before a Single Bench of the High Court of Kerala and was dismissed by a short order stating that since the appellant was not one of the candidates who figured in the list of seven successful candidates qualified for consideration there was no question 7 of issuing any direction for appointment. The learned Single Judge observed:

9. Aggrieved by the above order the appellant filed a writ appeal before the Division Bench of the High Court which too failed and was dismissed by the High Court. The High Court was of the view that the contention urged in support of the challenge to the selection process did not have any foundation in the pleadings of the parties and even assuming that the challenge on the grounds urged before it was maintainable the fact that the writ petition had itself been filed nearly two years from the date of the issue of the notification was sufficient for the High Court to decline interference. The present appeal questions the correctness of the above order before us.

21. That brings us to the second limb of the submission of Mr. Dinesh that even if the number of vacancies is taken to be limited to six, he was entitled to be appointed against one of the unfilled vacancies meant for reserved category candidates. That submission, in our opinion, needs notice only to be rejected. Firstly, because there is no foundation laid in the writ petition filed by the appellant nor was any 18 such point ever raised before the High Court. The result is that the unfilled vacancies meant for reserved category candidates and those that have become available in the merit category after the issue of the initial recruitment notification have already been notified. The appellant, it is not in dispute, has participated in the fresh selection process initiated by the High Court like many others who were eligible to apply against the vacancies in the open merit and the reserved category. It is, therefore, neither proper nor feasible at this stage for this Court to interfere with the ongoing selection process. The appellant it goes without saying would get a fair chance like every other eligible candidate to compete for an appointment. In the result this appeal fails and is hereby dismissed but in the circumstances without any orders as to costs.