Manju Kumari vs Haryana School Shiksha Priyojna Parishad

Augustine George Masih, J.—Petitioner has approached this Court, praying for issuance of a direction to the respondent to re-calculate her merit strictly as per the criteria made out in the advertisement dated 09.10.2012 (Annexure P-1), according to which she is entitled to 1 additional mark for having passed M. Phil in English, which mark has not been granted to her and if the said mark is granted to her, she would be entitled to appointment to the post of Block Resource Person (English).

It is the contention of counsel for the petitioner that in pursuance of the advertisement dated 09.10.2012, vide which 51 posts of general category for appointment to the post of Block Resource Person (BRP-English) were advertised, the petitioner applied for the same. In the application form, copy of which has been appended as Annexure P-2, she had clearly mentioned of having passed M. Phil in the year 2008 from Chaudhary Devi Lal University, Sirsa in the subject of English by obtaining 221 marks out of 400 marks, which fact is not disputed by the respondent in its written statement. The last selected candidate in the general category to the post of Block Resource Person (English) has obtained 63.6833 marks. If this 1 mark is granted to the petitioner, she would get total 64.6333 marks and her name would figure at a stage between Sr. No. 30 and 31 i.e. 30-A and, thus, she would be higher in merit than 17 candidates. The counsel accordingly prays that direction may be issued to the respondents to add said 1 mark in the total marks obtained by the petitioner and appointment letter be issued to her.

Counsel for the respondents submits that the petitioner had not mentioned the related subject/field as was specified in the proforma and because of that the software could not pick up the same, resulting in non-grant of 1 mark to the petitioner for M. Phil. He further states that as per Clause 8 in case of a mistake in filling up the data, the same could have been corrected from 09.10.2012 to 30.10.2012 upto 5.00 p.m. by entering his/her registration number and password, which the petitioner did not do. Therefore, no fault can be attributed to the respondents. Prayer, thus, has been made for dismissal of the writ petition.

I have heard learned counsel for the parties and with their assistance have gone through the records of the case.

The fact that the petitioner had applied for the Post of Block Resource Person (English) in pursuance of the advertisement dated 03.10.2012 by moving an application, copy of which has been appended as Annexure P-2, is not disputed. In the said application, the petitioner had not only given the year of passing, University from where she had completed her M. Phil and the marks obtained but had also mentioned the subject in which she had done the M. Phil. If that be so, the stand of the respondent that the petitioner had not filled the form properly, which has led to the software not picking up the option given by her, resulting in non-grant of 1 mark, to which the petitioner was entitled to for the said qualification, cannot sustain, although in clause 8 it was mentioned that mistake could be rectified within the time specified therein. In fact, as a matter of fact, on perusal of the copy of the application, Annexure P-2, it is apparent that the columns were rightly filled up by the petitioner and there was no ambiguity. The fault, if any, was that of the computer or the programme for which the petitioner cannot be penalised.

In view of the above, the present writ petition is allowed. The petitioner is held entitled to grant of 1 mark for having completed M. Phil in the subject of English. She shall now have total marks of 64.633, entitling her to be placed in the merit list of the candidates for the post of Block Resource Person (English) at the relevant place on the basis of said marks. According to this merit of the petitioner, she would fall between selected candidates at Sr. No. 30, Jyoti daughter of Harish Bhatia and candidate at Sr. No. 31, Sushil Kumar son of Mahavir Singh. Direction is further issued to the respondents to issue the appointment letter to the petitioner forthwith. Petitioner shall be entitled to all consequential benefits from the date the other selected candidates of general category were issued appointment letters, except for the actual financial benefits from the date of issuance of such appointment letter till the date of filing of the writ petition i.e. 21.07.2013.