JUDGMENT

Arijit Pasayat, J.-Civil Appeal Nos. 3615-3618/2002

In these appeals by Rajasthan Public Service Commission (in short the Commission ) and its Chairman, challenge is to the legality of common judgment by a Division Bench of Rajasthan High Court disposing of four writ petitions.

2. Synoptical resumption of the factual position, almost undisputed is as follows:-

On 1-6-2001 an advertisement to recruit 116 Munsif Magistrates was issued by the Commission; out of which 59, 24, 19 and 14 were earmarked for the General, OBC, SC and ST categories respectively. In terms of the scheme of the examination, only those candidates who obtained a minimum of 35 marks in each law paper and 40% in aggregate were eligible to be called for interview. For the posts in question, stipulation was that candidates numbering three times the number of posts advertised in each category were eligible to be called for interview. Commission issued interview letters to 302 candidates in respect of 116 vacancies. The shortfall was on account of non-availability of candidates in SC and ST categories. Though the number of posts were 59 in the General category, 189 candidates were called for interview as several