Chairman, All Railway Rec. Board & Anr vs K. Shyam Kumar & Ors

We are in these cases concerned with the validity of an order dated 04.06.2004 issued by the Railway Board directing the Railway Recruitment Board (in short RRB) to conduct a re-test for recruitment to Group-D posts, for those candidates who had obtained minimum qualifying marks in the first written examination against which large scale irregularities were noticed.

3. The vigilance report and the various complaints were examined by the Railway Board and the Board after discussing the matters with the RRB gave a direction vide its letter dated 04.06.2004 to conduct a re-test for those candidates who had obtained minimum qualifying marks in the written examination. The operative portion of the order reads as follows:-

4. Railway Board also ordered that the cases of the candidates referred to GEQD including those found guilty during the course of investigation by the Vigilance or CBI be dealt with as per the extant rules at the time of preparation of the final panel or later stage. RRB was directed to take steps to conduct written examination and PET at the earliest. Railway 4 Board vide its letter dated 1st September, 2004 directed the RRB to go ahead with the examination scheduled on 26.09.2004.

6. The Tribunal found no irregularity in the decision taken by the Board in conducting a re-test which was taken after referring to the vigilance report and other relevant materials. Further it was noticed that the majority of the candidates had not objected to that course and the applicants had approached the Tribunal only at the eve of the re-test. Further it was also noticed the final select list was never published, hence no legal rights of the applicants were infringed. O.A. No.975/2004 was, therefore dismissed on 02.09.2004. O.A. No.1008/2004 filed by few other candidates who had not taken the re-test claiming identical reliefs was also dismissed by the Tribunal on 23.09.2004.

9. The High Court rejected the contentions that the order was politically motivated and mala fide but applying Wednesbury's principle of unreasonableness the Court held that the decision of the Board was illegal, arbitrary and unreasonable and directed the Board to finalise the selection on the basis of the first written test and to issue appointment orders to all the candidates except the 62 candidates against whom there were allegations of impersonation.

28. With due respect, we are unable to subscribe to that view, which is an overstatement of the English Administrative Law.

34. We shall now test the validity of the order impugned applying both the principles.

37. We, therefore hold, applying the test of Wednesbury unreasonableness as well as the proportionality test, the decision taken by the Board in the facts and circumstances of this case was fair, reasonable, well balanced and harmonious. By accepting the third alternative, the High Court was perpetuating the illegality since there were serious allegations of leakage of question papers, large scale of impersonation by candidates, mass copying in the first written test.

41. Applying the above principle, we are of the view that the finding recorded by the High Court that non supply of the copy of the Vigilance report to the candidates was a legal infirmity, cannot be sustained.

44. We, therefore, find no infirmity in the decision taken by the Board in conducting the second written test for those who have obtained minimum qualifying marks in the first written test rather than going ahead with the first written test which was tainted by large scale irregularities and malpractices. The Board can now take further steps to regularize the results of the second test and the appointments of the selected candidates. Ordered accordingly. Appeals are accordingly allowed and the judgment of the High Court is set aside.

May 06, 2010.