The main legal point established in the judgment is that the appointing authority cannot deny appointments on whims and must act in accordance with the rules and with justifiable reasons. The judgment also emphasizes that the State must act according to Article 14 of the Constitution of India and cannot make arbitrary, capricious, or whimsical decisions.

JUDGMENT :

Rule. Rule made returnable forthwith and heard finally, with the consent of the parties.

2. Petitioner is in employment of respondents as Junior Officer (Security) from 27-11-2012. Respondents had issued an advertisement dated 16-1-2017 for various posts, inter alia, nine posts of Deputy Manager (Security). From said nine posts, one post was reserved for V.J. (A) category along with other reserved and open posts, as under —

Sr. No. Category Number of Posts

1. S.C. 1

2. S.T. 1

3. V.J. (A) 1

4. O.B.C. 1

5. Open 5

3. Petitioner had applied for the post of Deputy Manager from V.J. (A) category. As required, he had participated in selection process. Petitioner appeared at online examination and also was interviewed. A list was published on 19-7-2017 which has been referred to as provisional list. One Nagnath Hanumanth Pachave was shown to have been selected from V.J. (A) category. Petitioner was shown to be at serial No. 2 in wait list from V.J. (A) category containing two names. One Mithun Prem Rathod was above petitioner in said list. Based on said provisional list, candidates were called for document verification on 3-8-2017. On verification, it had surfaced that two persons above petitioner in the provisional list, namely, Mr. Pachave and Mr. Rathod did not fit into the eligibility criteria for the post of Deputy Manager (Security). After that the respondent-company came out with lists of eligible/non-eligible candidates on 22-9-2017. According to petitioner, the list of eligible candidates was the final select list. Petitioner was listed at serial No. 16 in the eligible candidates’ list annexed to the petition at Exhibit ‘J’ as displayed on respondents’ site portal/website, showing him from wait list.

4. However, for quite sometime, since there were certain orders passed by Court putting restraint on recruitment, no appointments were made. Subsequently in 2018, while appointment orders were issued by the respondents, since petitioner did not receive any, he had approached respondents. He had made a representation to the respondent-company, but except oral assurances, no action was taken in that direction. He, thus, has approached this Court by present writ petition.

5. It is submitted that from the very eligible-final select list dated 22-9-2017, the respondent-company has issued appointment orders to those candidates, who were held to be eligible for appointment along with petitioner in the same selection process, but the petitioner has been arbitrarily singled out and is discriminated, considering him to be on wait list.

6. It is the case of petitioner that in final select list, petitioner is the only eligible candidate as against the post of Deputy Manager (Security) reserved for V.J. (A) category. It is submitted on his behalf that the candidate at serial No. 1 in the final list, who though is shown to be of V.J. (A) category, being eligible according to score from open category had in fact been so put in the final select list.

7. The respondent-company has filed its reply contending that the petitioner does not have any vested right to be appointed and since there is no such legal right, no mandamus can be issued. It is also contended that the company has taken decision not to operate the wait list and not to appoint anyone on the post of Deputy Manager except those given appointment letters. It is also contended that the company has not issued appointment letter to any wait listed candidate. It is further submitted that the guidelines dated 27-7-2017 specifically make it clear that the select/wait list are purely of provisional nature and the respondent-company reserves right to cancel the selection of the selected/wait listed candidate based on operational needs of the company.

8. In re-joinder, petitioner contends that the candidate by name Satish Sevakram Birkhede from O.B.C. category has been moved from select list to wait list in view of the fact that the Assessment and Testing Agency (ATTEST) based on application made