The court emphasized the importance of candidates providing preferences for the Central Armed Police Forces in the application form and upheld the selection process as per Para 10(iv).

SANJIV KHANNA, J.

1. The petitioner-Pankaj Kumar, an OBC candidate and domicile of the state of Bihar, had participated in the selection process conducted by Staff Selection Commission in 2012 for appointment to the post of Constable (General Duty) in Central Armed Police Forces and Rifleman (General Duty) in Assam Rifles.

2. The petitioner had, admittedly, not given option in his application form as to which Central Armed Police Force i.e. Border Security Force; Central Industrial Security Force; Central Reserve Police Force; Sashastra Seema Bal or alternatively the Assam Rifles, he would opt to join.

3. The petitioner having secured 61 marks, was not appointed. He has preferred this petition, inter-alia, on the ground that some of the selected candidates had secured less marks.

4. In the present case, the petitioner had left the option column blank and not indicated preference for any of the Central Police Organisations. His case, therefore, was to be considered in the Reserve List-I after accommodating the candidates who had opted for the specified Forces. The selection was made on a "merit-cum-option" basis separately for each State, based on the domicile of the candidate, and was contingent upon vacancies existing in each of the Armed Police Forces within the said State.

5. The petitioner cannot, in the aforesaid circumstances, claim right to be considered for appointment in the Select List which is the first list. However, as some vacancies in different States in the Central Armed Police Forces were not filled up, the Reserve List-I was published. The respondents on the said aspect, have clarified the position in paragraphs 19 to 23 of the counter affidavit which are reproduced as under:-

(19) That after finalizing the Select List on the basis of vacancies allotted to different States and merit-cum-option of the candidates, it was found that some vacancies were left unfilled in some States due to non-availability of suitable candidates within the State (Deficit States/UTs) and it was also found that there were some other States where candidates, securing marks above the highest cut off marks fixed in the written part of the Examination, but failed to find place in the Select list of their respective States due to high cut off fixed for final selection on the basis of vacancies allotted to that State (Surplus Candidates).

(20) Therefore, as per the provision of the Notice of the Examination, contained in Para 10(iv) and in Para 14 of Notice of the Examination, the Commission, in consultation with the Ministry of Home Affairs (Who is the user department), prepared a Reserve List by diverting the candidates from surplus State (where the candidate with higher cut off marks could not be accommodated in Select list due to non-availability of vacancies in their domiciled State) to deficit State (where vacancies could not be filled due to non- availability of suitable candidates even at minimum qualifying marks i.e. 35% for UR & Ex-Servicemen and 33% for candidates of SC, ST & OBC categories in written part of Examination). For this purpose, all the vacancies of deficit State was pooled in single vacancy (all India basis) called Reserve List and the surplus candidates were allotted CPO on the basis of merit-cum-option irrespective of their domicile status subject to certain conditions. Therefore, there was a single cut off mark of each category (UR/OBC/SC/ST) for all the candidates in Reserve List.

(21) However, as per advice of the Ministry of Home Affairs (the nodal/user department) unfilled vacancies in Jammu & Kashmir, North Eastern States (Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura), Naxal and Militancy affected states (Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal) were not filled with candidates from surplus State