JUDGMENT

Partha Sarthy, J. - Heard learned counsel for the petitioners,

2. Learned Standing Counsel for the State and learned counsel for the Bihar Public Service Commission.

3. The petitioners have filed the instant application for the following reliefs:

i. For directions to the respondents concerned to recommend the name of the petitioners and to issue appointment letter to the post of Accounts Officer.

ii. For direction to the respondent to appoint the petitioner in light of Rule 15 of Bihar Accounts Services Rules 2000 (as Amended from time to time).

iii.For directions to respondents to recommend the name of the petitioners for appointment on the post remained vacant due to non-joining of the some of the earlier recommended candidates.

iv.For holding and a declaration of Rule 15 of Bihar Accounts Services Rules 2000 (as amended) and recommendation of the petitioners name for appointment, as he is eligible to be appointed on the post, after vacancy due to non-joining of recommended candidates.

v. For holding and a declaration with regard to the petitioners' candidature as eligible who is placed at Sl. No.- 129 and 135 respectively in combined merit list and now is fit to be appointed in his own category due to non-joining of some of the successful candidates of his category.

vi.For directions upon the respondents to complete the process of appointment in light of the Rules and to consider the representation of the petitioners filed before the concerned authority.

vii. For grant of any other relief or reliefs to which the petitioner is found entitled in the facts and circumstances of the case.

4. The case of the petitioners in brief is that pursuant to the vacancy on the post of Accounts Officer under the Finance Department, Government of Bihar, the Bihar Public Service Commission (hereinafter referred to as "the Commission") came out with Advertisement no. 3/2015 for filling up 100 posts which included 18 seats under the Extremely Backward Class (EBC) category to which the petitioners belong. The petitioners being eligible filed their applications and appeared in the preliminary test. On being declared successful, both the petitioners appeared in the main written test. Once again they were declared successful and were called for interview by the Commission wherein they appeared along with the documents of their educational qualifications. The result against 100 advertised vacant posts including 18 under the EBC category was published on 1.10.2018. This was from the combined merit test of 195 candidates for all category of Account Officer competitive examination (Advertisement no. 03/ 2015) published by the Commission.

5. It is further case of the petitioners that vide letter no. 10135 dated 19.12.2019 the candidature of altogether 11 recommended candidates were cancelled by the Finance Department. Four out of the eleven candidates belonged to the EBC category.

6. In the meantime, a writ application being C.W.J.C. No. 19220 of 2019 ( Prabhas Pathak versus State of Bihar and others) was filed in this Court seeking a direction to the respondents to recommend his name for appointment as Account Officer against such posts which remained vacant because of non-joining of the recommended candidates. Pursuant to the direction of this Court in the said writ application, the Commission came out with a revised result on 16.1.2020, whereby the earlier result was revised. It is the case of the petitioners that on perusal of the revised result dated 16.1.2020 it would transpire that the candidates, namely, Shiv Shankar and Kamal Nath Thakur who were earlier placed in the EBC category, in the revised result were in the general category. Thus, these two vacancies together with the four earlier vacancies on account of non-joining, a total of 6 vacancies came to be created in the EBC category. In the EBC category of the amended result dated 16.1.2020 the last candidate to be adjusted was one Vinod Kumar. In the combined merit list Vinod Kumar was at seri