The main legal point established is that experience certificates for bonus marks should be issued based on the candidates' actual work performed, without considering their entitlement for bonus marks.

ORDER :

1. Present writ petition and others enlisted in the Schedule appended herewith involve common grievance and identical relief. Hence, they are being disposed of conjointly by this Common order. The Schedule shall be treated as part and parcel of the order instant.

2. All the petitioners claim to have worked under the Government or schemes being run by the Government on contract basis or through placement agencies. All of them wish to apply for the post of Nursing Officer advertised by the respondents by recruitment notification dated 16.11.2022.

3. The terms of the advertisement and relevant Rules provide for bonus marks to eligible candidates on the basis of experience gained on prescribed conditions and for the purpose of claiming bonus marks candidates are required to upload experience certificate in prescribed proforma duly issued by the competent authority (CMHO concerned).

4. Their main grievance is, that in spite of the fact that they have applied for issuance of experience certificate which is mandatory for claiming bonus marks for the post of Nursing Officer, the concerned CMHO/authorities are not issuing them experience certificates due to which they are not able to submit their online application forms.

5. While pointing out that thousands of applicants have applied for experience certificate and there are limited resources and manpower to deal with such huge number of applications in short span of time, learned counsel submitted that in absence of clear guidelines and yardsticks, the CMHOs are taking longer than usual time and precaution while issuing experience certificates. It was also contended that in many cases they are verbally refusing to issue certificates citing that the applicant is not entitled for bonus marks.

6. It is brought to the notice of the Court by the learned counsel for the petitioners that in view of the stipulation carved in the circular dated 05.12.2022 particularly ^^ik= vH;fFkZ;ks** the CMHO concerned are raising all types of queries/hurdles and making it almost impossible to obtain an experience certificate.

7. It was argued that though the entitlement for bonus marks is to be determined by the competent authority/recruitment authority at the time of document verification or preparation of merit list, but the CMHOs have taken unto themselves the task of adjudging the eligibility of each candidate.

8. Considering the grievance of the petitioners, this Court had directed the Joint Director (Recruitment) Medical and Health to remain present so that the concern expressed and issues raised by the petitioners can be appropriately addressed.

9. Mr. Sanjay Saxena, Joint Director (Non-Gazetted), OIC Recruitment present in person assured the Court that full cooperation would be extended to the candidates and though instructions have been issued to expeditiously issue experience certificate and circulars have been issued from time to time, yet clarification, addressing various concerns shown by the candidates, would be issued within a period of three days from today. And all the authorities will be directed to issue experience certificate in light of the direction issued by the Court and in terms of the circular that will be issued by the Directorate/State.

10. Heard learned counsel for the parties and the Joint Director.

11. In a bid to ward off inconvenience and hardship to the candidates and in order to expedite and streamline the process of issuing experience certificate, it is deemed expedient and hence ordered that:

(i) Henceforth, the candidates will be required to submit their application forms in two copies, out of which one copy will be returned to the candidate with a receipt with date and seal by the officials of the concerned CMHO.

(ii) All the candidates will be required to submit a copy of the experience certificate, issued by the concerned agency/NGO/ respective authorities while submitting application for experience certificate.

(iii) All the candidates who have applied for issuance of ex