The main legal point established in the judgment is that the relaxation provided in the rules for the requisite experience was valid and that the selection made on that basis cannot be interfered with.

B.K. Sharma, J.

1. The challenge made in this writ petition is the Annexure-7 notification dated 3rd July, 2006 by which the Arunachal Pradesh Public Service Commission, under the signature of its Secretary, has notified the selection for appointment of the incumbents named therein as Junior Specialist Doctors in the disciplines mentioned against each candidate.

2. The petitioners as well as the private respondents are the MBBS degree-holders with Post Graduate degree/diploma in different streams. In response to the advertisement dated 24th January, 2006 for 31 posts in different disciplines, the petitioners and the private respondents along with others offered their candidature. It is submitted that for 31 posts, only 50 applications were received. In terms of the advertisement in which it was notified that the selection would be made through viva-voce test and interview only, the selection was conducted by the Public Service Commission and pursuant to such selection, the impugned notification dated 3rd July, 2006 has been issued notifying the selection for appointment of the 25 candidates named in the notification for various disciplines. While the private respondents have been selected for appointment, the petitioners have not been selected.

3. The primary ground on which the petitioners have challenged the entire selection process initiated by the aforesaid advertisement and the selection of the private respondents is that the private respondents having not fulfilled the requirement of experience as per the rules, which is 3 years for P.G. Degree holders and 5 years for diploma holders, the Public Service Commission could not have selected the private respondents. It will be pertinent to mention here that out of 10 petitioners, 4 petitioners also do not conform to the requirement of the requisite experience. In Para-12 of the writ petition, a statement has been made that all the petitioners are having requisite qualification prescribed under the advertisement and thus, they duly applied in response to the advertisement dated 24.1.2006. In Para-16 of the writ petition, the petitioners have admitted that out of the 10 petitioners, the petitioners No. 6, 7 and 8 do not have the requisite experience as prescribed in the rules. However, according to the private respondents, the petitioner No. 3 also does not have the requisite experience.

4. At this stage, it will be appropriate to refer to the relevant rules since the entire argument of the learned Counsel for the parties is based on the prescribed experience in the rules and the relaxation extended in respect of such experience. The rule holding the field is the Arunachal Pradesh Health Services Rules 2001. As per Schedule 5 to the Rules, for the post of Junior Specialist, with which we are concerned, there is requirement of 3 years experience in the concerned specialty after obtaining the P.G. Degree and 5 years experience after obtaining P.G. Diploma. Thus, while 3 years experience is the requirement for P.G. Degree holders, it is 5 years experience, which is required for P.G Diploma holders.

5. As per Note-2 appended to the aforesaid clause regarding the experience, the experience is relaxable at the discretion of the Commission in the case of the candidates belonging to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, if at any stage of the selections, the Commission is of the opinion that sufficient number of candidates from these communities possessing requisite experience, are not likely to be available to fill up the vacancies, reserved for them. In the instant case, it is an admitted position that altogether 50 candidates applied for this specified 31 posts and out of which only 20 Scheduled Tribes candidates and 2 general category candidates were found to be eligible for appointment as per the rules. Thus, the requirement of experience for filling up the 31 posts fell short generally. Discipline wise was also, there was shortage of candidates.

6. In the above context, t