The appointment of a candidate is invalid if they do not disclose current employment and fail to submit a mandatory no objection certificate during the selection process.

ORDER :

M. NAGAPRASANNA, J.

1. The petitioner is before this Court calling in question an Office Order dated 07.09.2018 issued by the respondent No.3 appointing the respondent No.4 as Assistant Professor in the Department of Botany at the respondent Vijayanagar Srikrishna Devaraya University (hereinafter referred to as the ‘University’ for short).

2. Facts adumbrated are as follows.

Before embarking upon the consideration of the issue on its merit, I deem it appropriate to notice the protagonist in the lis. The petitioner is an applicant to the post of Assistant Professor in the Department of Botany pursuant to a selection process initiated by the respondent No.2 University. So is the respondent No.4, who emerges as the selected candidate. Therefore, the lis is between the petitioner and the selected candidate.

3. Notifications are issued calling for applications from eligible candidates at various disciplines in the University. One such discipline so called was the discipline of botany which forms the fulcrum of the lis. The recruitment notifications in the case at hand are not one but three in number. The first recruitment notification is 01.06.2016. The second recruitment notification was 08.08.2017. The third recruitment notification which confined itself to the vacancies arising in the area declared under Article 371J. The third recruitment notification is what is germane for the issue in the lis. Pursuant to the recruitment notification of the year 2016, the petitioner and the respondent No.4 had submitted their respective applications. Since the subsequent notifications indicated that the candidates who have already submitted the applications need not submit all over again.

4. This ostensibly was for the purpose of not demanding repeated fee from the hands of the candidates. However, it was indicated that any updated information should be given. The respondent No.4 and the petitioner participate in the selection process. The selection process resulted in withdrawal of the name of the petitioner and the respondent No.4 as being eligible to be considered for interview. The respondent No.4 and the petitioner were called for interview. Interviews were conducted. Pursuant to the interview, the result is that the petitioner is not selected and the respondent Nos.4 and 5 were selected. The selection of the respondent No.4 is what is challenged by the petitioner.

5. Heard the learned counsel Sri. Ramachandra A. Mali, appearing for the petitioner, learned counsel Sri. J.S. Shetty representing respondent No.3, Sri. Mahesh Wodeyar for respondent No.4 and the learned AGA Smt. Girija S. Hiremath for respondent No.1.

6. The learned counsel Sri. Ramachandra R. Mali appearing for the petitioner would vehemently contend taking this Court through the documents appended to the petition and the documents that are produced before this Court that the selection of the respondent No.4 is marred by illegality. The respondent No.4 at the time of interview or at the time of the application that was submitted at the time of interview had already been appointed in the Forest Department of the Government. Such appointment is not divulged. Through proper channel, the applications are not updated. Permission to attend the interview is not granted by the competent authority through proper channel.

7. The learned counsel would further submit that no objection certificate that was necessary to attend the interview is not in place and the merit that the petitioner secured, is far higher than that of the selected candidate. The response given by the University to the petitioner in seeking information about submission of no objection certificate, runs counter to the statement of objections so filed by the University. Therefore, on all these counts, the learned counsel submits that the entire selection process of the respondent No.4 is laced with mala fides and arbitrariness. Therefore, the petitioner ought to have been selected and not the respondent No.4 is the sub