Case: Ritu Mahajan Vs. Indian Oil Corporation

8. Being aggrieved by the said Judgment and Order of the Division Bench, the present appeal was filed

Court's reasoning:
14. The aforesaid findings and the conclusions of the Board were challenged in writ petition. It may, however, be mentioned at this stage that in a case filed before this Court, titled as Onkar Lal Bajaj v. Union of India the issues with regard to the allotment of marks, the criteria followed by the said Board in allotting marks to various candidates were challenged on the ground that the selection was based on Political Consideration. In the said case, this court by the judgment and order datedreported in (2003) 2 SCC 673 constituted a committee of two Judges comprising Mr. Justice S.C. Agarwal, a former Judge of this Court and Mr. Justice P.K. Bahri, a former Judge of the Delhi High Court, to examine 413 cases including the present case pertaining to the allotment to the fifth respondent. The Committee constituted by this Court examined the records and submitted a Report. The relevant portion of the said report is placed on record as Annexureat page 120 of the paper book.15. In the said Report, it was mentioned that on the basis of the marks awarded by the members of the Board at the interview, the name of following applicants, in the order of merit, was published onSmt. Rani Gauba;(ii) Smt. Ritu Mahajan; and(iii) Smt. Paramjeetwas stated in the said Report that the Board was not required to allot any marks in two categories i.e. Capability to arrange finance and Capability to provide Infrastructure & Facility as the said outlet was a Company Owned Company Operated Retail Outlet and the finance was to be made available in easy terms from the corpus funds to the selected candidates in such reserved category.On the face of the Total Marks obtained, the committee found that the appellant comes at serial No. 1 with 112 marks, while the fifth respondent comes at serial No. 2 with 110 marks. The Committee, thereafter, having recorded the aforesaid findings proceeded to examine whether there was any arbitrary allotment of marks to any of the candidates and on examining the first category, namely, Educational Qualification & General Level of Intelligence it was found that the fifth respondent is matriculate whereas the appellantRitu Mahajan is B.E. (Electrical). Upon considering the said qualifications, it was found that the allotment of equal marks viz. 25 by the Chairman to the appellant and fifth respondent was unjustified and was held as arbitrary. So far as the category with respect to Personality, Business ability and Salesmanship is concerned the committee observed that the fifth respondent was running PCO since 1996 whereas the appellantRitu Mahajan was working as Incharge of R & D Section of M/s Standard Electricals Ltd. inand therefore, it cannot be said that the fifth respondent is having better experience than the appellant. The two members allotted better marks to appellant than the fifth respondent whereas the Chairman allotted higher marks to fifth respondent as compared with appellant. In this view of the matter the Committee held that the Chairman allotted marks arbitrarily to tilt the balance in favour of the fifth respondent. So far as General Assessment is concerned, it was found that the higher marks given by the Chairman to the fifth respondent again were unjustified. The Committee, therefore, held that the allotment made in favour of the fifth respondent was not on merits.17. The aforesaid comparison of merits is based on relevant records and therefore the scrutiny and conclusions arrived at by the Committee cannot be said to be in any manner arbitrary or unjustified. The Committee has appreciated the respective merit of the two candidates and on such appreciation has come to a finding that the appellant is a better candidate for which it has given cogent and valid reasons.18. We have also scrutinized the records submitted by the parties and on bare perusal of the same, we find that the appellant was more meritorious than the fifth respondent on all counts. For the operation of the said outlet finance was to be provided by the Oil Corporation, which was to bein 100 equal monthly installments alongwith interest @ 11% per annum and the first installment was to begin from 13th month of commissioning of dealership. Thus Capability to arrange finance and Capability to provide Infrastructure & Facility could not have been relevant and material criteria. On that score we fully endorse the opinion of the committee constituted by this Court. We may also mention that in the present case no preference could have been given to the fifth respondent as the same was to be given to unmarried women above 40 years of age without earning parents and widows only on other things being equal. In the present case as also held by the committee the appellant was higher in merit in comparison to the fifth respondent in all the criteria and thus all the factors and consideration cannot be said to be equal.19. The said report of the committee was upheld by this Court in Mukund Swarup Mishra v. Union of India being Transferred Case (Civil) No. 100 of 2002 reported in (2007) 2 SCC 536. In the present case an objection is filed by the fifth respondent against the report of the Committee. In view of our findings and conclusions recorded hereinbefore, it is held that the objection has no merit. We accept the report having found the same as valid and legal.