. IMPORTANT POINT
The court's intervention in the recruitment process and the re-measurement exercise established the trustworthiness of the selection process and influenced the final decision.

JUDGMENT :

G.Narendar, J.

Heard Sri G.V.S.Kishore Kumar, learned Government Pleader for Services-I (“Ld. G.P. for S-I”) appearing for the Appellants and Sri Jada Sravan Kumar, learned Counsel for the Respondents/Writ Petitioners.

2. The Appellants are the State represented by its Principal Secretary, Department of Home; the State Level Police Recruitment Board represented by its Chairman, and the Director General of Police, Andhra Pradesh.

3. The Appellants are before this Court in this intra-Court Appeal being aggrieved by the order, dated 17.11.2023, passed by the learned Single Judge, on I.A.No.1 of 2023 in W.P.No.29757 of 2023.

4. The Respondents 1 to 24 are the Petitioners and candidates, who have participated in the recruitment process initiated by the Appellants, more particularly, the 2nd Appellant, to fill-up the posts of Stipendiary Cadet Trainee (SCT) Sub-Inspectors of Police (Civil) (Men and Women) in Police Department and also to fill-up similar posts in the Reserve Police.

5. The parties are referred to by their nomenclature before the learned Single Judge for the purpose of brevity and convenience.

6. The case of the Petitioners in a nutshell is that they are aspirants and applicants to the posts noted supra. That the Respondent-State had stipulated stringent eligibility conditions with regard to the age and physical fitness standards, including height, etc. That the recruitment process involved multiple stages including preliminary written test, physical measurements test (“P.M.T.) and endurance test; that the Petitioners had trained hard to enhance their capabilities to perform well in the selection process and thereby ensure selection based on the merit of their performance. The aspirants/Petitioners all claim to be unemployed and wholly reliant on the employment opportunity in the above posts. It is the case of the Petitioners that they had qualified in the prelims and the endurance test and also in the P.M.T; that despite having completed all the stages of selection successfully, they were issued with rejection orders rejecting their candidature. That the candidates/Petitioners underwent P.M.T. at various places in the Offices of the D.I.G. of Police, i.e., at Eluru, Visakhapatnam, Kurnool and Guntur; that the rejection orders have been issued on the ground that the Petitioners failed in the P.M.T. i.e., that they did not measure upto the minimum height stipulated and in some cases they did not meet the required chest expansion. That all the Petitioners in the instant Writ Petition, have primarily been rejected on the ground that they did not measure upto the minimum height stipulated under the selection notification. It is in this background the Writ Petitions came to be preferred.

7. In the Writ Petition, the Petitioners also preferred an Interlocutory Application i.e., I.A.No.1 of 2023 wherein the Petitioners not only sought for the suspension of the orders of rejecting their candidature, but further sought for a Court monitored independent expert committee to manually measure the heights of various Petitioners. The learned Single Judge, after hearing the parties, has been pleased to allow the said I.A., and was further pleased to stay the announcement of results in respect of other candidates. While allowing the application, the learned Single Judge has been pleased to place reliance on the heights recorded during the previous selection process of 2018 and has pointed out an instance in this regard i.e. with regard to the candidate at Sl.No.21, wherein during the previous selection process, the height of the candidate was recorded at 169.1 c.m. Aggrieved by the same, the Appellants have preferred the instant Writ Appeal.

8. The order rendered on the said I.A. was sought to be resisted on multiple grounds. In fact, it was contended that the learned Single Judge has virtually attempted to carry out the selection process. Though several grounds are raised, the events that transpired after the matter was taken up fo