The Public Service Commission's discretion to enforce application requirements and entertain applications based on circumstances.

JUDGMENT

P. Subramonian Poti, J.

1. The Kerala Public Service Commission which was the sole respondent in Original Petition No. 1769 of 1974 is the appellant herein. The appeal is against the decision of a learned Single Judge of this Court on a petition by three Junior Assistants of the Kerala State Electricity Board quashing Exhibits P-1 to P-3 orders passed by the Kerala Public Service Commission rejecting the application of the petitioners for appearing for a departmental test and directing the Public Service Commission to declare results of the tests held on 17th April 1974 for which the petitioners were allowed to appear on the strength of an interim order passed by this Court when the Original Petition was pending. The three petitioners desired to sit for the departmental test for the Executive and Ministerial Staff of the Kerala State Electricity Board held in April, 1974 in order to seek promotion from the post of Junior Assistants held by them to that of Senior Assistants. In order to sit for the examination the petitioners had to remit certain amount into the Treasury and the Original Chalan receipts had to be produced along with the application before the Office of the Public Service Commission. It is said that the petitioners paid their examination fee towards the close of the period fixed for sending application and for want of time the first petitioner thought of directly submitting the applications before the Office of the Kerala Public Service Commission at Trivandrum. For that purpose he was on his way in the bus but then he found that he had lost his diary, a diary in which the original chalan receipts were kept. On discovering this he is said to have immediately returned to Thodupuzha Sub Treasury and requested for issue of duplicate copies of the three chalan receipts relating to payment by three petitioners. He was told that there was no provision to issue duplicate chalan receipts and what they could do to evidence payment was only to issue certificates as envisaged in R.94 of the Treasury Code Vol. I. Accordingly after taking certificates evidencing the payments the applications were submitted to the office of the Public Service Commission. Since the condition required by the notification of the Public Service Commission for a proper application to be made was accompanied in the case of the three applications these applications were rejected by the Public Service Commission. Against such rejection representations were made by the petitioners but apprehending that this may not serve any useful purpose, the petitioners approached this Court. They obtained interim orders permitting them to sit for the test subject to the withholding of the result. They sat for the test but the results have not been published as that would be subject to the result of the Original Petition According to the petitioners the loss of the original chalan receipts was due to circumstances beyond their control and so they did the best under the circumstances namely produced certificates of payment. In the circumstances, according to them, the Public Service Commission ought to have acted upon such certificates and entertained the applications of the petitioners. When the case came up for hearing the Public Service Commission was not ready with a counter affidavit and the learned Single Judge disposed of the case without such counter. The learned Judge was of the view that since the certificates have been issued on the strength of R.94, in such cases instead of being hyper technical, it was necessary that the Public Service Commission should take a more practical view of the issue involved. The learned Judge further observed that:

"It cannot be said that the petitioners were not diligent in doing the proper thing at the proper time."

The view taken by the learned Judge, appears to be that since the payment before the due dates are evidenced by the certificates issued under R.94 of the Treasury Code Vol. I, Part III, the petitioner shoul