The main legal point established in the judgment is that the decision in a writ petition challenging specific category posts cannot affect the appointments made to other category posts that were not under challenge in the writ petition.

RAJIV SAHAI ENDLAW, J.

1. This intra court appeal impugns the judgment dated 11th July, 2014 of the learned Single Judge in W.P.(C) No.5162/2013 filed by the respondents No.2 to 5 namely Dr. Veena Gaur, Dr. Ashok Jain, Dr. Sanjay Kumar Singh and Jagbir Singh. Vide the said judgment, the selections for the post of Assistant Professors in the Department of Buddhist Studies made by the respondent No.1 University of Delhi pursuant to advertisement dated 11th January, 2012, were set aside, however with the caveat that those who had joined pursuant to the interim order dated 23rd October, 2013 in the said writ petition, would continue in their posts, subject to no equities being claimed by them and the respondent No.1 University was granted liberty to recommence the procedure for filling up the posts from the stage of receipt of applications. The entire process was ordered to be completed expeditiously, not later than eight weeks.

2. This appeal as well as certain other appeals being LPAs No.521/2014, 546/2014 & 38/2015 also preferred against the same judgment came up before us on 29th January, 2015 when finding that this appeal need not be clubbed with the other appeals, we decided to deal with this appeal separately and on 12th February, 2015 heard the senior counsel for the two appellants, senior counsel for the respondent No.1 University and the counsel for the respondents No.2 to 5. The counsel for the respondents No.6 to 8 though had appeared on 29th January, 2015, chose not to appear on 12th February, 2015. Though the report of service of notice issued of the appeal to the respondents No.9 to 11 had not been received till then but the parties were ad idem that the respondents No.9 to 11 are not concerned with the subject matter of this appeal. We may also notice that the other appeals against the impugned judgment are still pending consideration and vide interim order therein, the operation of the order of the learned Single Judge has been stayed.

3. The writ petition from which this appeal arises was filed by the respondents No.2 to 5, challenging the procedure followed by the respondent No.1 University for selection to the post of Assistant Professor in the Department of Buddhist Studies pursuant to the advertisement dated 11th January, 2012 inviting applications therefor. The said advertisement was inter alia for filling up of nine posts, of which five were in the unreserved category, two were in the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category and one each was in the Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) category. The respondents No.2 to 5 writ petitioners belong to the unreserved / OBC category and were by way of the writ petition seeking appointment to the posts meant for unreserved / OBC category and to which they claimed to be entitled to.

4. The two appellants herein namely Mr. Galdhan Sangai and Mr. Dharmendra Kumar belong to the ST and the SC category respectively and had been selected for the two reserved posts for the said categories. The respondents No.2 to 5 / writ petitioners, who as aforesaid were claiming appointments to the unreserved posts, while filing the writ petition challenging the procedure followed for selection, did not even implead the appellants as parties to the writ petition. However since vide ad-interim order dated 21st August, 2013 in the writ petition, the respondent No.1 University was restrained from finalising the selection process and the recommendations made for issuing appointment letters was also stayed, the appellants applied in the writ petition for impleadment and were so impleaded vide order dated 9th September, 2013. The appellants then applied for vacation of the ad-interim order and on which application, on 31st October, 2013 inter alia the following order was made:

“It is clarified that since there are four petitioners who challenge selection process, only for the four posts in the categories to which the petitioners had applied, the interim order will operate, and res