ORDER :

Leave granted.

2. The State of Odisha had advertised 1828 vacancies for Secondary School teachers in Government Schools in Odisha on 23.02.2019. Out of the 1828 vacancies, regular vacancies for Unreserved/SC/ST/SEBC were 253/81/113/57 respectively and unfilled vacancies of previous recruitment for Unreserved/SC/ST/SEBC were 662/215/298/149, respectively.

3. One of the main conditions of the advertisement under Clause 13(l) was that "A candidate of any social reservation category shall be treated as UR candidate if he/she is selected on merit and has not availed any relaxation admissible to his/her social category."

4. The respondent before this Court filed a writ petition before the High Court stating that she belongs to Unreserved Category and candidates belonging to Reserved Category have been appointed to posts for Unreserved candidates, which should not have been done as per the above-mentioned condition in the advertisement.

5. The petition was disposed of by the learned Single Judge by directing the State to consider the case of the present respondent, but the Single Judge refused to interfere with the selection process. Thereafter, the present respondent approached the Division Bench against this order, and prayed for quashing of the provisional select list. The Division Bench disposed of the writ appeal by modifying the order of the Single Judge, and directed the State to revise the provisional select list by excluding Reserved Category candidates from the provisional select list prepared for the

6. Unreserved Category. Consequently, the State of Odisha is before us in this Special Leave Petition.

7. We have gone through the conditions of appointment as well as Clause 13(l) of the advertisement. It is absolutely clear that since, in the present case, the Reserved Category candidates have been selected by relaxing the eligibility condition, they could not have filled the seats for Unreserved Category. Therefore, we see no fault in the order of the Division Bench of the High Court, on principle of law, to the extent that it holds that the State was liable to follow Clause 13(l) of the advertisement issued by it. This conclusion of the Division Bench, in our view, reflects the conditions of selection as contained in Clause 13(l) of the advertisement, as referred above, correctly.

8. However, it has been stated before this Court by the learned counsel representing the State of Odisha that the selected candidates who have been given appointment way back in the year 2019, are presently teaching in different Government Schools all over the State of Odisha and it would not be proper to disturb the selection at this stage, particularly when no one, apart from the present respondent, approached the High Court and this Court.

9. Another aspect which has been brought to our attention by the State, has to be taken into consideration. It is that the present respondent, who was petitioner before the High Court, has secured only 71.75 marks, whereas the last candidate of Unreserved category had obtained 76.25 marks. Now, even if the list is revised as per the directions of the High Court in the impugned order, the last Unreserved Category candidate who would be selected would have secured 75 marks. This, evidently, is much higher than the marks secured by the present respondent in the examination and there are many candidates having much higher marks than the respondent. Thus, the respondent had absolutely no chance of being selected even as per the directions in the impugned order.

10. Under these circumstances, we set aside only the further directions given by the High Court to correct the entire list. In ad