Aftab Alam, J.

1. The two petitioners aspiring to be appointed as physics teachers in a middle school are aggrieved by an advertisement contained in Annexure-1 to the writ application which tends to exclude them on the threshold. The impugned advertisement issued by the District Superintendent of Education, Bhojpur at Arrah, invites application for the preparation of the waiting list for the year 1988 for appointment to the post of physical teachers in the selected middle schools of the district. The advertisement in question, inter alia, lays clown conditions that the applicant must be a resident of Bhojpur district or must have continuously resided in the district for the past ten years and that the candidate must have successfully completed C.P. Ed. course from a physical training college run by the Bihar Government.

2. The first of the aforesaid two conditions though equally arbitrary, does not seem to adversely affect the petitioners inasmuch as they appear to be the permanent residents of Bhojpur district and hence it is only the second condition which comes under attack in this writ application.

3. The impugned advertisement is said to have been issued on the basis of a Circular letter No. 197, dated 17.2.1981 issued by the Special Secretary-cum-Director (Primary), Bihar to all District Education Superintendents. Clause 5 of this letter directs that a session-wise list of the students should be obtained from the Principals of all Government Physical Training Colleges and a panel for appointment to the post of Physical teachers should be prepared on the basis of the lists thus obtained.

4. The petitioners who are said to be B.Sc. and B.A. respectively claim to have passed the Examination of "Bachelor or Physical Education" from Nagpur University held under the auspices of Maharashtra Government which is said to be recognized by that Government. The petitioners not having done the course in Physical training from any college run by the Bihar Government are thus in eligible and, accordingly, challenge that condition imposed in the advertisement as arbitrary, unreasonable and violative of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution.

5. It is to be noted that advertisements/orders of the State Government purporting to exclude persons from other districts from being considered to be appointed to the post of teachers in any particular district have been earlier considered by this Court and have been held to be per se violative of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution because they discriminate against the residents of other district without any rational basis. Reference in this connection may be made to two Divison Bench decisions reported in 1987 PLJR 846 Anil Kumar V/s. State of Bihar and 1990 PLJR 226-Sushri Priti Biswas V/s. The State of Bihar and Ors.

6. As regards the 2nd condition, stipulating that the candidate must have completed the course of C.P. Ed. from a college run by the Bihar Government, the learned Counsel for the petitioners, on the analogy of the aforementioned decisions contends that the latter condition is also bad and violative of the constitutional guarantees for the same reasons for which the former condition was held bad. Mr. Radha Mohan Prasad, learned Counsel appearing on behalf of the State, on the other hand sought to defend this latter condition on the strength of what is stated in paragraph-6 of the counter affidavit tiled on behalf of the respondents. Paragraph-6 of the counter-affidavit reads as follows:

That it is further stated that 9 months training is essential for obtaining the physical trained certificate from Government recognized institution in Bihar whereas the period of 6 months training required in some of the other institution.

I do not think this statement provides an adequate defence for the impugned condition. The above quoted statement to my mind is a post facto rationalization of a policy actuated by narrow parochial urges. First, admittedly, only some and not all instituti