JUDGMENT :

PAMIDIGHANTAM SRI NARASIMHA, J.

1. Leave granted.

2. This appeal is by the appellant seeking appointment as a primary school teacher. He is aggrieved by the judgment of the Division Bench of the High Court of Delhi dismissing the writ appeal, ¹[L.P.A. No. 158/2018 dated 16.10.2018.] which was filed against the order of the Single Judge dismissing his writ petition. ²[W.P. (C) No. 5279/2017 and C.M. 22382/2017 dated 24.01.2018.]

3. Pt. Deendayal Upadhyaya Institute for the Physically Handicapped, hereinafter referred to as the ‘Institute’, issued an advertisement in March 2016 calling applications for appointment to the post of primary school teachers. The vacancy circular issued for this purpose provided the qualifications and the procedure for selection. The basic qualification was senior secondary with a twoyear diploma or certificate course in ETE/JBT or B.EI.Ed. The candidates were required to have passed the secondary level with Hindi as a subject. The final selection was to be made after conducting an interview of qualified candidates. The Institute reserved its right to evaluate, review the process of selection, and shortlist candidates at any stage, and its decision would be final and binding. This discretionary power is notified under Clauses 14 and 19 of the vacancy circular. The relevant clauses relied on by the Institute are as follows:

"14. Decision of the institute in all matters regarding eligibility of the candidate, the stages at which such scrutiny of eligibility is to be undertaken, the documents to be produced for the purpose of conduct of interview, selection and any other matter relating to recruitment will be final and binding on the candidate. Further, the institute reserves the right to stall/cancel the recruitment partially/fully at any stage during the recruitment process at its discretion, which will be final and binding on the candidate.

19. Fulfilment of conditions of minimum qualification shall not necessarily entitle any applicant to be called for further process of recruitment, in case of large number of applications, Institute reserves the right to short-list applications in any manner as may be considered appropriate and no reason for rejection shall be communicated and no claim for refund of fee shall be entertained in any case.”

4. On 27.04.2016, the Institute deviated from the procedure prescribed in the original advertisement/vacancy circular and issued a notification dispensing with the interview requirement, which was a part of the selection process for Group ‘B’ and ‘C’ posts. Instead, it prescribed allocation of additional marks for essential qualifications, additional qualifications, essential experience, and the written test.

5. The issue arising for consideration in the present case relates the allocation of marks for additional qualifications, for which 10 marks had been prescribed. The break-up of the 10 allocable marks is as under:

6. It is evident from the above that a candidate possessing a Post Graduate Diploma and a Post Graduate Degree would be entitled to allocation of 5 and 6 marks respectively for their additional qualification. However, a person possessing an MPhil degree or a professional qualification in the field would be entitled to allocation of 7 marks for their additional qualification.

7. When the results were declared on 22.05.2017, the appellant got an aggregate of 57.5 marks, and respondent no. 3 got 58.25 marks. On enquiry, the appellant came to know that marks of respondent no. 3 are inclusive of the 7 marks that she was entitled to for holding the professional qualification of Masters in Education (M.Ed.). The appellant has no complaint against the allocation of 7 additional qualification marks to respondent no. 3. He was however surprise