Bibek Chaudhuri, J.—These batch of writ petitions having similar set of questions of law and facts have been heard together and this Court proceeds to deliver the following judgement to dispose of aforementioned writ petitions by a composite judgement.

2. The Bihar Public Service Commission (hereinafter referred to as "BPSC" for short) came out with an advertisement bearing Advertisement Number 02/2017 for selection of candidates for the post of Assistant Engineer (Civil Engineering) in various Departments in the Government of Bihar. Petitioners fulfilling all the eligibility criteria, applied against the advertisement under the Unreserved Category and finding their applications and candidature in order, Petitioners were allotted Roll Numbers and issued admit cards. Petitioners appeared for the Preliminary Test (PT), which was held on 15.09.2018 and were declared successful in the result which was published on 30.01.2019. Thereafter, the Petitioners appeared in the Mains Examination held between 27.03.2019 to 31.03.2019 and were again declared successful in the results which were published on 24.01.2021. Thereafter, on 03.02.2021 BPSC published the schedule and instructions for interview for candidates who had qualified in the Mains Examination, which was to be held from 22.02.2021 to 13.03.2021. On 20.02.2021 BPSC published another notification titled "Important Information" on its website whereby it was inter alia informed that the candidates appearing for interview were required to fill in and submit their preference for different Departments in prescribed Form II, which along with department-wise available vacancies were available on the website of BPSC. A bare perusal of Notification dated 20.02.2021 and Form II accompanied by Departmental vacancies appended thereto would reveal the following:—

i. it was mandatory for the candidates to notify their preference in Form II and submit the same at the time of the interview.

ii. the candidature of a candidate would not at all be considered for such department with respect to which no preference was indicated by the candidate and the said post of the department would be allotted to the next candidate, lower in merit list as per his/her preference.

iii. if a candidate failed to mention preference with respect to any of the departments, then even if the candidate was placed in the merit list, the candidate would not be allotted any post/ vacancy in any department even if the same remained unfilled.

iv. no application in future would be considered or entertained for modification of preference indicated by the candidates. Petitioners accordingly appeared for interview on their respective dates and submitted their preferences.

3. In the interview the Petitioners found that the questions being put to them were based on the first preference indicated by them in Form II and in Petitioners' own assessment, the Petitioners performed fairly well in the interview. But to the shock of the Petitioners, in the Final Result published by the Respondent BPSC on 14.07.2021, they found that the same had been prepared solely on the basis of merit and not on the basis of merit cum choice (preference wise) as was mandated under the Notification dated 20.02.2021.

4. Furthermore, the petitioners found that their names did not feature on the merit list as their total marks were either equal to or below the cut-off marks for the Unreserved Category (477 marks), which was arrived at by preparing the final result solely on the basis of merit and not on the basis of merit cum choice. Upon asking for the reason for not preparing the result on the basis of merit cum choice, viz., that since in another Advertisement being Advertisement No. 03/2017 issued for appointment of Assistant Engineers (Mechanical Engineering) for different departments in Govt. of Bihar, preference had not been sought from the candidates of the said Advertisement No. 03/2017 therefore, despite seeking preference from candidates who had appeared