Adherence to stipulated selection procedure and lack of relaxation in the terms and conditions of the advertisement.

JUDGMENT :

ASHWANI KUMAR SINGH, J.

1. In the present writ application, the petitioner has made a prayer to direct the respondents to declare her as a successful candidate in the final result of 30th Bihar Judicial Services Competitive Examination, 2018 in the Extremely Backward Class (EBC).

2. The case of the petitioner is that pursuant to the Advertisement No. 06 of 2018 inviting application from eligible candidates for appointment against 349 posts of Civil Judge (Junior Division), the petitioner being eligible, applied in the EBC (Female) category. The advertisement clearly stipulated that 73 posts were reserved for candidates belonging to the EBC category. After the submission of the application, the respondents released admit card and she appeared in the 30th Bihar Judicial Services Preliminary Competitive Examination held on 27.11.2018 and qualified in the test. After qualifying the preliminary test, she received admit card for the Main (Written) Examination. She appeared in the Main (Written) Examination which was held from 07.06.2019 to 12.06.2019. Since she had obtained 443 marks in the Main (Written) Examination, she was declared qualified for interview. She appeared in the interview on 16.11.2019 and obtained 65 marks. Thus, she got 508 marks in the final cumulative result of the Main (Written) Examination and interview.

3. On the date of interview, she was informed that the caste certificate submitted by her is not in the prescribed manner. Though she had submitted the caste certificate along with her income certificate and residence certificate issued by the State Government, the respondent-Bihar Public Service Commission (for short ‘BPSC’) did not consider the same to be in proper form. The petitioner also sent the EBC (Non Creamy Layer) Certificate issued for the purpose of appointment to the posts under the Government of India along with an application through e-mail on both e-mail IDs of the respondents on 16.11.2019 and 23.11.2019 respectively. After getting no response from the respondents, she sent the EBC (Non Creamy Layer) Certificate issued by the State Government for the purpose of appointment to the posts under the Government of India along with an application through speed post on 25.11.2019. She got the (Non Creamy Layer) Certificate issued by the Government of Bihar in the prescribed manner on 26.11.2019. Thereafter, she sent the same through e-mail on 26.11.2019 itself and also sent through speed post to the BPSC on 27.11.2019. The respondent-BPSC without considering the case of the petitioner and the application filed by the petitioner, published the final result of the 30th Bihar Judicial Services Competitive Examination, 2018 on 29.11.2019. In the final result, the name of the petitioner was not found in the list of successful candidates even though she had obtained 508 marks in total and the cut off marks under the EBC category was less than 508 marks.

4. Learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that the petitioner has been discriminated by the respondents. She has wrongly been left out from the list of successful candidates. The EBC (Non Creamy Layer) Certificate produced by the petitioner was issued by the State of Bihar and should have been relied upon by the respondents. He contended that it is not the case where the petitioner was not in possession of EBC (Non Creamy Layer) Certificate. The criteria for the EBC (Non Creamy Layer) in case of Central Government and State Government is the same i.e. the income of the family of the candidates should be less than Rs. 5 lacs per annum. The respondents have illegally not accepted the certificate of the petitioner. According to him, the action of the respondents in not appointing the petitioner to the post of Civil Judge (Junior Division) in EBC category is illegal, arbitrary and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India.

5. Respondent-BPSC has filed its counter affidavit and supplementary counter affidavit in the present matter.

6. It wou