ORDER :

These writ petitions have been filed by the petitioners questioning the result dated 08.05.2020 issued by the respondent-Rajasthan Public Service Commission (in short ‘the RPSC’) for the post of Junior Legal Officer (in short ‘JLO’).

2. Since the issues raised in all these writ petitions are common, with the consent of the learned counsel for the parties, the writ petitions are decided at this stage by the present common order.

3. This Court treats S.B.Civil Writ Petition No.6657/2020 [Vijendra Singh Dudi & Ors. Vs. State of Raj. & Anr.] as a lead case and for the purpose of adjudication of the present dispute, facts are taken from the said petition.

4. The facts, pleaded in nutshell, are that an advertisement dated 19.09.2019 was issued by the RPSC inviting application for the post of JLO. The petitioners feeling themselves fully eligible, filled in the application form and they appeared in the written examination conducted on 26.12.2019 and 27.12.2019. The respondent-RPSC declared the result on 08.05.2020 of the candidates who were selected for interview and further the respondent-RPSC decided to hold interviews, as per the press note dated 23.06.2020.

5. The petitioners have pleaded that in the result declared on 08.05.2020, they were not selected for interview and marks of the petitioners were less than the cut-off marks fixed in their respective categories.

6. The petitioners have alleged in the petition that the result was declared of the selected candidates in an arbitrary manner without giving benefit to the reserved category candidates like the petitioners and the same fact is evident from the cut-off marks of TSP-ST category, as their cut-off was higher than the cut-off of TSP-General category.

7. The petitioners have further pleaded that the respondent- RPSC did not apply the reservation policy in a proper manner and in an arbitrary manner did not shift the candidates belonging to a particular reserved category to General category, who secured more marks than the cut-off fixed for General category.

8. The petitioners have pleaded that the respondent-RPSC has created inequality by treating vertical reservation in the same manner as horizontal reservation. The allegation in the petition is that the arbitrary act of the respondent-RPSC by treating different classes of reservation on the same footing, has resulted in high merit of reserved category, which ought to have been less if the respondent-RPSC had shifted the toppers of a particular reserved category, who were high in order of merit than the cut-off fixed for the General category.

9. The allegation of the petitioners, in the writ petition, is that the arbitrary act of the respondent-RPSC has resulted into creating two classes by treating unreserved category as reserved category and as such, the same is violative of the basic structure of the Constitution of India.

10. The petitioners have further alleged in the petition that according to the scheme of examination, the written examination is not a qualifying examination but the marks of the written examination are added in the recruitment process.

11. The legal grounds, raised in the writ petition, and the submissions made by the learned counsel for the petitioners are as follows:-

11A. The respondent-RPSC has created inequality by treating vertical reservation in the same manner as horizontal reservation.

11B. The respondent-RPSC has not adopted the correct method of scheme of reservation.

11C. The respondent-RPSC has not declared the result of the main examination category-wise and as such, the right of the petitioners is affected to participate in the selection process.

12. The respondent-RPSC had initially filed reply but there was some typographical error and as such, the amended reply, filed by the RPSC, was taken on record by the order of this Court dated 25.01.2021.

13. The respondent-RPSC has pleaded that they had issued advertisement dated 19.09.2019 for 156 posts of JLO out of which 145 posts were advertised