The main legal point established in the judgment is that the selection process must be fair, reasonable, and in accordance with the principles of Art.14 of the Constitution.

1. In response to the notification issued by the Public Service Commission for the post of Boat Lascars, the petitioners submitted their applications but they were not called for interview. Therefore they approached this Court with this Original Petition and obtained an ad interim order directing the Public Service Commission to interview them subject to the final decision in the case. Accordingly they were duly interviewed. The rank list consisting of about 299 candidates already made on the 28th of February, 1982 had a life of two years. In pursuance of the interim direction made by this Court after the petitioners were interviewed, petitioners 4, 5,6, 8 and 9 were included in the rank list subject to the final decision in the original petition. Petitioners 1 to 3 and 7 were not even provisionally selected for inclusion in the rank list. Hence it is obvious that their cases do not deserve any further consideration.

2. So far as petitioners 4, 5, 6, 8 and 9 are concerned, it is obvious that if they were suo motu called for interview by the Public Service Commission they would have got themselves included in the rank list. Mr. Kelu Nambiar, learned counsel appearing for the Public Service Commission, also told us that they would have been advised for appointment, as persons lower in the rank list have already been advised.

3. The principal contention of Sri. Radhakrishnan, learned counsel for the petitioners is that the action of the Public Service Commission in not calling the petitioners for interview is arbitrary. It appears that the number of candidates to be interviewed was restricted in this case to 400 in all, relying upon the second proviso to R.5(ii) of the Kerala Public Service Commission Rules of Procedure. When the Public Service Commission is confronted with the situation where there are unduly large number of applicants, the second proviso to R.5(ii) enables it to restrict the number of candidates to be called for oral test or interview on the basis of one or more of the three criteria mentioned therein. For the sake of convenience we propose to extract the first and second provisos to R.5(ii) as follows:

"Provided that where the number of qualified applicants is unduly large having regard to the number of vacancies the Commission may restrict the number of candidates to be called for the oral test (interview) to such extent as they may decide after conducting any examination as they deem fit:

Provided further that the Commission may also restrict the number of candidates to be called for oral test (interview) on the basis of any one or more of the following criteria:

(a) Higher qualification

(b) Higher marks

(c) Age

The second proviso alone is relied; but the first proviso is required to understand the scope of the second proviso.

4. For the post of Boat Lascars the qualification prescribed is that the candidate must be literate in Malayalam, Tamil or Kannada. He should also possess a Boat Lascar's licence. It was explained that the Public Service Commission felt that those who are older in age should be preferred to the younger ones as the younger candidates would have further chances of appointment. It was on that basis, it was sumitted by Sri. Kelu Nambiar, learned counsel for the Public Service Commission that the number of candidates to be interviewed was restricted to 400 out of the total number of 996, selecting the older among the candidates depending upon the classification required to be made in accordance with the rule of reservation. In the counter affidavit filed by the Public Service Commission, the procedure followed by them has been indicated in Para.8 to 11 extracted below:

"8. For filling up the 70 vacancies already reported and for the vacancies that could be anticipated, the Commission decided to call for interview about 400 candidates on the basis of age, as is done in the case of selection for Last Grade Servants. According to this principle, SO percent of the total number of candidates t