State of Uttarakhand and Others vs Kanhaya Lal

Heard Sri K.P. Upadhyaya, the learned Addl. C.S.C. for the State/appellants and Sri Jagdish Singh Bisht, the learned counsel for the respondent.

The present Special Appeal is directed against the order of the learned Single Judge dated 10th March, 2008 allowing the writ petition and directing the appellants to consider the case of the writ petitioner for appointment on the post of Assistant Teacher (Language) L.T. Grade.

The facts leading to the filing of the present Special Appeal is, that the appellants had issued an advertisement dated 21.10.1997 which was published in a newspaper inviting applications for the post of Assistant Teacher. In this advertisement, the last date for submission of the application was disclosed as 21.11.1997. Based on this advertisement, the writ petitioner had applied and submitted his Application Form on 4th November, 1997. Since the writ petitioner could not include his mark-sheet, he delivered the mark-sheet in person on 10th November, 1997 which was accepted by the Department. However, the writ petitioner''s application was not considered and he was not considered for appointment. It has come on record that the last candidate, who was appointed, had 55.64 quality points, whereas the writ petitioner had obtained 58.54 quality points. Accordingly, a representation was filed which was rejected and thereafter, the writ petitioner filed the writ petition which was allowed by the impugned order.

The learned Single Judge held that the writ petitioner had applied within the stipulated period and that a corrigendum issued by the Department could not give any advantage to the Department since the corrigendum that was published was absolutely vague.

Before this Court, the learned counsel for the appellants contended that since the advertisement dated 21.10.1997 carried a mistake, a corrigendum was issued by the newspaper itself on 24th October, 1997 inviting the attention to the candidates to the effect that the last date for the submission of the application has been preponed from 21st November, 1997 to 10th November, 1997.

In the light of this corrigendum, the learned counsel for the appellants submitted that admittedly the mark-sheet was filed by the writ petitioner on 10th November, 1997, i.e., after the last date for submission of the Application Forms. Since the application of the writ petitioner was defective, it could not have been accepted under Rule 15 of the U.P. Subordinate Educational (Trained Graduates Teachers) Service Rules, 1983. For facility, Rule 15 of the Rules is extracted hereunder:

Procedure for direct recruitment.-(1)(a) The Regional Deputy Director of Education concerned shall in respect of the vacancies of both branches (Men''s and Woman''s Branch) to be filled by direct recruitment, advertise the vacancies subject-wise, along with the number of vacancies to be reserved for the candidates belong with to the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other categories of persons in at least two leading news papers one having wide circulation in the region and the other in the State, and invite applications for direct recruitment in the proforma given in Appendix ''C''. Such advertisement shall, inter alia, mentioned the pay and allowances relating to the posts, minimum academic qualifications for appointment thereto and such other information as may be considered necessary.

(b) The application referred to in clause (a) shall be sent, by registered post, to the Regional Deputy Director of Education, within three weeks from the date of Publication of advertisement in the newspaper, so as to reach the office of the Regional Deputy Director of Education on or before the last date of receipt of application mentioned in the advertisement.

(c) The application referred to in clause (a) shall be accompanied by-

(i) A fee of fifteen rupees in the form of Crossed Postal Order payable to the concerned Regional Deputy Director of Education: Provided that such fee shall in the case of candidates belonging to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes be five rupees:

(ii) A self addressed envelope; and

(iii) Other documents as may be required.

(d) No application not sent in accordance with clause (b) or (c) shall be taken into consideration.

(2) The Regional Deputy Director of Education shall scrutinize the applications and shall cause the lists of candidate to be prepared on the basis of quality points specified in Appendix ''D''. The Regional Deputy Director of Education shall place the lists along with the applications before the Selection Committee.

(3) There shall be a Selection Committee for selection of candidates for appointment by direct recruitment comprising:

(i) Appointing Authority;

(ii) The Regional Deputy Director of Education or the Regional inspectors of Girls Schools who is not appointing authority;

(iii) Regional Assistant Director of Education (Basic).

The appointing authority shall be the Chairman.

(4) The Selection Committee shall, after considering the cases of candidates on the basis of lists referred to in sub-rule (2), prepare subject-wise lists of selected candidates for appointment in L.T. Grade in order of merit as disclosed by the quality points complied under sub-rule (2). If two or more candidates obtain equal quality points, the name of the candidate who is older in age shall be placed higher in list. The number of names in the list shall be larger (but not larger by more than twenty-five per cent) than the number of vacancies advertised under sub-rule (1).

In the light of the aforesaid provision, the learned counsel for the appellants submitted that the Application Form, which was not sent in accordance with the provision of Rule 15(b) and (c), could not be taken into consideration. Since the application of the writ petitioner was defective, it could not be cured and the appellants were justified in not considering the petitioner''s application.

Having heard the learned counsel for the parties at some length, the Court is of the opinion that the appellants cannot take advantage of the mistake committed by themselves or by their agent, namely, the newspaper. The first advertisement clearly indicated that the last date for the submission of the application form was 21st November, 1997. This was preponed to 10th November, 1997 pursuant to the corrigendum issued by the newspaper on 24th October, 1997.

We have perused the corrigendum so issued in the newspaper which has been annexed as Annexure-1 to the supplementary counter affidavit in the writ petition and we find that the said corrigendum is patently vague and does not disclose that the corrigendum is with regard to the advertisement in question. In the light of the aforesaid, the Court is of the opinion that necessary advantage has to be given to the candidates and no benefit can be taken from this error by the Department.

For the reasons stated above, we do not find any error in the order of the learned Single Judge. The Special Appeal is accordingly dismissed.