Ujjal Bhuyan, J.

Heard Mr. KN Choudhury, learned Senior Counsel assisted by Mr. D Pangging, learned counsel for the petitioner; Mr. UK Nair, learned Senior Counsel appearing for the Gauhati High Court; Mr. AD Choudhury, learned counsel appearing for respondent No.6 and BD Goswami, learned Govt. Advocate, Arunachal Pradesh.

2. By filing this petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, petitioner seeks quashing of notification dated 17.05.2013, issued by the Registrar (Admn.)-cum-In-charge, Recruitment Cell, Gauhati High Court to the extent of recommendation of respondent No.6 for appointment to Grade-II of Arunachal Pradesh Judicial Service; quashing of appointment of respondent No.6 to Grade-II of Arunachal Pradesh Judicial Service vide order dated 23.07.2013 and for a direction to respondent No.2 to recommend the name of the petitioner for appointment to Grade-II of Arunachal Pradesh Judicial Service.

3. According to the petitioner, she had obtained her LLB degree from Campus Law Centre under Delhi University in the year 2006 and thereafter enrolled herself as an Advocate under the Bar Council of Delhi on 14.03.2007. After practicing for about five months, petitioner returned to Arunachal Pradesh in the last part of the year 2007 and since then, she has been practicing in the Itanagar Bench of the Gauhati High Court and its sub-ordinate courts.

4. Considering the fact that State of Arunachal Pradesh is a pre-dominantly tribal State, Government of Arunachal Pradesh in the Department of Personnel, Administrative Reforms and Training had issued a notification dated 04.05.2001 in exercise of the powers conferred by Clause 4(4) of Article 16 of the Constitution of India ordering that 80% of the posts in Group ‘A’ under the Government of Arunachal Pradesh, which are to be filled up by way of direct recruitment, shall be reserved for Arunachal Pradesh Scheduled Tribe (APST) candidates. A model 100 point roster indicating the points of reservation in Group ‘A’ posts was appended to the said notification.

5. As part of the process for separation of the Judiciary from the Executive, Governor of Arunachal Pradesh in exercise of the powers conferred by the proviso to Article 309 of the Constitution of India read with Article 234 thereof, in consultation with the Gauhati High Court and Arunachal Pradesh Public Service Commission framed the Arunachal Pradesh Judicial Service Rules, 2006 for regulating the conditions of service of persons appointed to the Arunachal Pradesh Judicial Service. Arunachal Pradesh Judicial Service comprises of three grades of officers, namely, Grade-I, Grade-II and Grade-III. While appointment to Grade-I is by way of both lateral entry i.e., by way of direct recruitment as well as by climbing the hierarchy i.e., by way of promotion; recruitment to Grade-II is by way of promotion from the cadre of Grade-III. Recruitment to Grade-III is by way of direct recruitment. Rule 8 lays down the reservation policy and says that in case of direct recruitment, 80% of the posts would be reserved for APST candidates and 20% for un-reserved and in the case of promotion, 50% would be reserved for APST candidates and 50% for un-reserved.

6. Gauhati High Court, Itanagar Bench issued an advertisement dated 20.02.2013, inviting applications from eligible Advocates for filling up 5 vacant posts in Grade-II of Arunachal Pradesh Judicial Service (to be created by Arunachal Pradesh Government shortly). Eligibility criteria pertaining to age, educational qualification, experience etc., were mentioned in the advertisement. It was further provided that 80% of the posts to be filled up by direct recruitment were reserved for candidates belonging to APST and the remaining 20% of the posts were to be filled up from the general category candidates. It was clarified that out of the 5 advertised posts, 4 were reserv