The method of reservation adopted by the commission in making selection of candidates for different departments and Unit Offices was in accordance with the relevant rules and the Govt order providing for reservation for Backward Classes.

( 1 ) THIS is an appeal from the order of Malimath, J, dismissing WP. 2015 of 1973. The appellants and the respondents herein were respectively the petitioners and the respondents therein. For the sake of convenience, the appellants will hereinafter be referred to as the petitioners.

( 2 ) OF the three petitioners, petitioner 2 has since been posted as First divn Clerk in the Commercial Tax Dept and hence he has no subsisting grievance. This appeal is now confined to petitioners 1 and 3 only.

( 3 ) THE material facts are briefly these: Petitioners 1 and 3 had been appointed as local candidates for the posts of First Divn Clerk and Second divn Clerk respectively in the Commercial Tax Dept of Karnataka State. By its Notification dated 14-1-1972, the State Public Service Commission, (hereinafter referred to as the Commission) called for applications, inter alia, for the pests of First Divn Clerks in several Depts of the State Govt. Petitioners 1 and 3 had applied for those posts and had expressed in their applications preference for being allotted to the Commercial Taxes Dept. In the examination held by the Commission, they were among the successful candidates. In the Notification of the Commission dt. 1-2-1973 (Ext. A) published in the Gazette, petitioners 1 and 3 were assigned to the Accounts unit of the Office of the Chief Engineer, Communication and Buildings.

( 4 ) THE petitioners' grievance is that they should have been assigned to the Commercial Taxes Dept in which they had been working as local candidates and to which Dept they had expressed their preference.

( 5 ) IN the writ petition, petitioners 1 and 3 had prayed for- (i) quashing the notification, Ext. A, in so far as it related to allotment of successful candidates to the Commercial Taxes Dept; and (ii) issuing a writ in the nature of mandamus directing respondents 1 to 3 (the State of Karnataka, the Commission and the Commr of Comml taxes in Karnataka) to allot them (Petitioners 1 and 3) to the Commercial taxes Department.

( 6 ) PETITIONERS 1 and 3 were accepted as belonging to Scheduled castes and Backward Classes respectively, for whom 15 per cent and 30 per cent respectively of the posts are reserved under the Govt Order dt. 6-9-1969 (as amended upto 16-6-1972) providing for reservation for backward Classes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Petitioners 1 and 3 had secured 72 marks and 86 marks respectively in the aforesaid competitive examination. The learned single Judge held that since the last candidate allotted to the Commercial Taxes Dept, had secured 97 marks, petitioners 1 and 3 who had secured much lower marks, could not complain about their not being allotted to the Commercial Taxes Dept. The learned single Judge took the view that the requirement of reservation of posts for Scheduled Castes and the other Backward Classes, would be satisfied if out of the total number of First Divn Clerks and Assistants appointed for several Depts and Units, 15 percent and 30 per cent of such total number are filled by candidates belonging to these two categories and that it is not required that these percentages of posts should be reserved in each of the several Dents or Units for which recruitment is made. On the other hand, the contention on behalf of petitioners 1 and 3, is that those percentages of reservation should be made in each of such Depts and Units.

( 7 ) THE short question for determnation in this appeal is this: When there is a combined recruitment to a common cadre in differen Depts and unit Offices of the State administration, whether reservation of percen- tagps of posts for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other Backward classes as prescribed by the Govt Order (providing for reservation for backward Classes in State Services) in that cadre should be in each of such Depts and Unit Offices or whether it is sufficient to make reservation of such percentages in the total number of posts in that cadre in all such Departments