Case: THE KARNATAKA STATE SEEDS DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION LIMITED Vs. H. L. KAVERI &amp; ORS.

2. The brief facts of the case in nutshell relevant for the purpose are that the appellant-Corporation invited applications for various posts against the backlog vacancies including two vacancies of Senior Assistant and ten vacancies of Junior Assistant pursuant to an advertisement dated 11 th November, 2013. Apart from the academic and professional qualifications, the applicant was required to furnish a certificate of work experience of 3 years/2 years in a reputed company for the post of Senior Assistant/Junior Assistant. It was further indicated in the advertisement that separate application has to be furnished for each post and incomplete application shall be rejected without assigning any reasons. The 1 st respondent applied for both the posts, i.e. Senior Assistant and Junior Assistant on a separate application, and indeed was holding academic/professional qualification but it reveals from the record that she had not enclosed the experience certificate of the requisite period along with the application form which was required at the time of submitting the application3. The select list of the candidates was to be prepared in terms of Rule 6 of the Karnataka State Civil Services(Unfilled Vacancies reserved for the persons belonging to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) (Special Recruitment) Rules, 2001(hereinafter being referred to as Rules) based on the percentage of marks secured by the candidate in the qualification examination taking into consideration the reservation for women, ex-servicemen, physically handicapped and project displaced persons in accordance with the Karnataka Civil Services (General Recruitment) Rules, 19774. The 1 st Respondent is a women and member of Scheduled caste category and secured 65.43% of marks in the qualifying examination and still when her name was not included in the select list, made representation but when failed to get satisfactory response, she approached the High Court by filing of a writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution. In reply to the writ petition filed by the Corporation, the specific case pleaded was that the 1 st respondent had applied for both the posts of Senior Assistant/Junior Assistant, but she failed to enclose the experience certificate which was the condition of eligibility in terms of the advertisement and at the stage of scrutiny, her application was rejected without assigning any reason. For satisfaction of the Court, the learned Single Judge of the High Court called for the original records and recorded a finding in paragraph 7 of the judgment that experience certificate was not enclosed by her with the application form which is reproduced hereunder:-On perused of the original records, it is clear that petitioner has not enclosed experience certificate while applying to the posts. This is evident from the application submitted, which contains other enclosures except the experience certificate. The scrutiny of application that has been made and maintained by respondent-Corporation reveals that several applications have been rejected noting the reasons for such rejection. The reason for rejecting the application filed by petitioner is stated as non- enclosure of experience certificate. Incidentally, it has to be noticed that other candidates who had not enclosed the experience certificate also suffered similar consequences5. The Single Judge of the High Court, taking note of the factual statement, was not inclined to consider the claim of the 1 st respondent and accordingly dismissed the writ petition vide judgment dated 11 th July, 2016 that came to be challenged by the 1 st respondent in Letters Patent Appeal before the Division Bench of the High Court. The Division Bench of the High Court took note of the statement of facts recorded by the learned Single Judge, but taking note of the fact that the 1 st respondent has secured higher marks in the qualifying examination for the post of Senior/Junior Assistant and mere non-enclosure of the experience certificate with the application, should not deny her claim of fair consideration for appointment and noticing the alleged peculiar facts allowed the LPA with a direction to the appellant-Corporation to consider the claim of the 1 st respondent taking note of the experience certificate for consideration and appointment with a caveat that the order passed by the Division Bench would not be treated as a precedent which is a subject matter of challenge in appeal before us.

Court's reasoning:
11. Under its advertisement dated 11 th November 2013, it was specifically indicated that separate application should be submitted for each post accompanied with various requirements including qualification, experience, etc. and incomplete application, if any, is liable for rejection without assigning any reason. The 1 st respondent applied for the post of Senior Assistant/Junior Assistant vide application dated 29 th November, 2013. After scrutiny of the applications, the select list of backlog vacancies was published on 16 th January, 2015 and it reveals from the record that impleaded 3 rd respondent in the writ petition (Smt. Priyanka A. Chanchalkar) was provisionally selected as Senior Assistant securing 64.65% marks. At the same time, the 1 st respondent secured 65.43% marks but since the 1 st respondent failed to submit experience certificate along with the application form, her application at the stage of scrutiny itself was rejected12. The Corporation in IA No. 3457 of 2020 has indicated that total 31 applications for the post of Senior Assistant were rejected in view of not enclosing of self-attested documents and there are 7 women candidates listed as valid applicant for Senior Assistant against the single post of female (Scheduled Caste) which remain unfilled because of the orders of the Court. At the same time, the Corporation rejected 106 number of applications for the post of Junior Assistant for not enclosing the documents required including self-attested copies of experience certificate/caste certificate/computer tally-certificate/graduation certififcate/birth certificate, etc13. It remains indisputed as recorded by the learned Single Judge of the High Court in the order after perusal of the original records of which reference has been made that the 1 st respondent had not enclosed her experience certificate along with the application and her statement on oath was found to be factually incorrect and the rejection of her application was indeed in terms of the advertisement dated 11 th November, 2013 for which the Corporation was not required to assign any reasons which although was disclosed before the Court and noticed by the learned Single Judge in its judgment14. In the given circumstances, we do not find any error being committed by the Corporation in its decision making process while rejecting the application of the 1 st respondent for non-fulfilment of the necessary experience certificate which was to be enclosed along with the application as required in terms of the advertisement dated 11 th November, 201315. That apart, the post of Senior Assistant which remained vacant, as informed to this Court, even if it is considered that there is a reasonable justification for which the certificate could not have been enclosed by the 1 st respondent along with the application, there are several other candidates who have obtained higher percentage in qualifying examination compared to the 1 st respondent whose applications have been rejected in view of not enclosing of self-attested documents and there are 7 women candidates listed as valid applicants for the post of Senior Assistant against the single post of women(SC) category, at least no indefensible right in the present circumstances, could have been claimed by the 1 st respondent for her inclusion in the select list for appointment to the post of Senior Assistant. At the same time, for the post of Junior Assistant, 106 applications of the applicants were rejected by the Corporation for non-enclosing self-attested copies including that of the experience certificate and this fact has come on record that out of 10 vacancies advertised, only one post for physically handicapped remain vacant as the suitable candidate was not available, which indeed could not be converted to open/other reserved categories16. The Division Bench of the High Court has relied upon the judgment in Seema Kumar Sharma case(supra) in extending relief to the 1 st respondent which, in our view, is of no assistance and, in our view, the Division Bench has committed a manifest error by taking note of the experience certificate to support her claim for appointment without even indicating the post for which her claim could be considered in terms of the advertisement dated 11 th November, 201317. We would further like to observe that merely because the 1 st respondent had approached the High Court by filing of a writ petition, that would not be sufficient to exercise jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution in over-reaching the rights of the candidates who were otherwise eligible for appointment.