Mrs. Kanta Madan and Others vs The State of Haryana and Others

K. Kannan, J.—Both the writ petitions are connected and are disposed of by a common order. All the petitioners were aspirants for

consideration for appointment to the post as Gram Sevikas and advertisement notification had been issued on 07.03.1987 for filling up 39 posts

for Gram Sevikas for the Development and Panchayats Department, in the scale of Rs. 400-600 and the qualifications were: (i) middle with two

years Tailoring and Embroidery Certificate (one year each) or two years diploma or matric and (ii) Hindi upto middle. Preference will be given to

candidates, who have worked as Craft Teacher for two or more years. The age qualification was between 17 to 35 years.

The challenge to the selection is that the entire process of appointment of private respondents was made without evolving any criteria. The

petitioners would also contend that they had several years of experience which was not considered as preferential qualification for their

appointments.

The statement originally filed by the State with reference to the selection criteria as was challenged in the writ petition, is brought in para 11 and

it is required to be reproduced to see the strength of the contention in defence by the State:-

That para 11 of this petition is wrong and hence denied. It is also wrong and denied that no criteria was adopted by the Selection Committee in

making the selection. It is pertinent to mention here that fixed criteria was adopted by the Selection Committee for selection of the candidates. The

candidates have been interviewed exhaustively on the basis of the criteria and sufficient time was devoted to each candidate to judge their

suitability. There were several candidates who could not answer even a single question put to them during interview where sufficient time was

devoted on them but their performance remained very poor and as such they were selected....

The selected candidates had a necessary qualification is not challenged. However, the challenge is that only selection went without any objective

criteria for the selection and without evolving any procedure as to how the preference would be given, having particular regard to the fact that all

the petitioners were experienced persons. The State has no more to suggest than that they had a fixed criteria. It is strange that the State must carry

out selection to public posts in such a cavalier fashion with no criteria enumerated. At least at the time when the reply was filed, it should have been

possible for the State to join issues on the petitioners'' challenge by providing the Interview Committee''s remarks or the manner in which the

selection was done. The expressions in the reply, such as, sufficient time was given in the interview and several candidates could not answer even a

single question in the interview, proved nothing. It is a lame excuse to make it appear as though that some appraisal was made at the time of

selection.

As tardy and clumsy as the selection process could be, we have come by an unfortunate situation that we have allowed this selection to stay on

and allowed for the selected candidates to continue without any fetter for more than 2 decades. The consolation that was given to the petitioners at

the time when notice was issued was that the selection would be done subject to the final outcome of the writ petition. When the final result is to be

undertaken now, the query before me is, if I find the selection to be bad, as indeed, I find, I still have no way for declaring the petitioners as

selected candidates. The process has still to be put in motion: all candidates must be called, after a transparent criteria evolved and selection made.

The Courts'' delays are proverbial. It makes policy makers, burn the midnight oil only to come with response of inability to find acceptable

solutions. At yet another time to a similar dilemma, the Division Bench in Rajpal Singh and others Versus State of Haryana and others-CWP No.

11526 of 1994, dated 11.02.2009, lamented as follows:

Thus, if we had to take a decision on merits, we may have reiterated the view earlier taken by this Court. However, the Court has to adopt a

pragmatic approach having regard to the circumstances of the case. The fact remains that the selected candidates have worked for 15 years,

though throughout, challenge to the selection has been pending. The clock cannot be reversed. In these circumstances, without recording any final

finding on the question whether selections were vitiated by interference of the then Chief Minister, we are of the view that the selections are not

liable to be disturbed at this point of time.

In this case, if the selection were to be set aside, if there was ever a situation that the petitioners'' relative grading had been secured over a

period of time and there were records to show that the petitioners were entitled to be selected, then it should have been possible to grant a relief to

the petitioners. There is no material available to hold either way that the petitioners were in any way more suitable than the private respondents. I,

therefore, merely record the fact that there existed no criteria. The selection was bad in law, but still I find no reason to interfere with the same..

Both the writ petitions are disposed of with the above observations.