Off-campus study centers require prior approval of the UGC and the State Government, and appointments made contrary to this requirement are liable to be canceled.

JUDGMENT :

1. Since all the instant petitions involve a common controversy, though with marginal variation in the contextual facts, therefore, for the purposes of the present analogous adjudication, the facts and the prayer clauses are being taken from the above-numbered S.B. Civil Writ Petition No.7320/2019, while treating the same as a lead case.

2. The prayer clauses read as under:

“i) by an appropriate writ, order or direction, the respondents may kindly be directed to grant a place of posting to the petitioner and to permit him to join at such place of posting so as to service as Lower Division Clerk in substantive / regular capacity. Further the respondents may kindly be directed to treat the petitioner to have been appointed against the vacancies of the year 2013, with all consequential benefits;

ii) The respondents may kindly be directed to not to treat the petitioner as ineligible for the purpose of serving on the post of Lower Division Clerk;

iii) any other appropriate writ, order or direction which this Hon’ble Court consider just and proper in the facts and circumstances of the present case, may kindly be passed in favour of the petitioner;

iv) costs of the writ petition may kindly be awarded to the petitioner.”

3. Brief facts of the case, as placed before this Court by learned counsel for the petitioner, are that vide advertisement dated 14.02.2013, applications were invited by Zila Parishads in 33 districts of the State of Rajasthan for direct recruitment on the post of Lower Division Clerk in accordance with the Rajasthan Panchayati Raj Act, 1994 and the Rajasthan Panchayati Raj Rules, 1996; vide the said advertisements total number of posts advertised were 19515, out of which 651 posts were pertaining to District Banswara.

3.1 As per the said advertisement, in order to be eligible for participating in the selection process (as reproduced in the writ petition), a candidate seeking recruitment on the post in question, was required to possess -

“Senior Secondary or equivalent examination passed from a recognized board;

and

‘O’ or higher level Certificate Course conducted by the DOEACC as under the control of Electronics Department, Government of India,

or

Computer Operator or Programming Assistant (COPA)/ Data Preparation or Computer Software Certificate as organized under National / State Commercial Training Scheme;

or

Diploma in Computer Science / Computer Application from a university established under the laws of India of from any institution recognized by the Government; or Diploma in Computer Science or Engineering from a Polytechnic Institution recognized by the Government;

or

Certificate Course in Information Technology (RSCIT) as organized by Vadhman Mahaveer Open University, Kota under the control of Rajasthan Knowledge Corporation Limited.”

3.2 As per the petitioner, being eligible the petitioner submitting his application in the prescribed format for District Banswara as well as District Alwar in the category of Unreserved (Male); subsequently, the merit list for the District Banswara came to be published by the respondents, and the cut off marks for the category of Unreserved (Male) was fixed as 65.970, and the petitioner having secured 66.40 marks was placed at Serial No.190 in the said merit list.

3.3 Accordingly, the petitioner, vide order dated 01.07.2013, the petitioner was appointed on the post of Lower Division Clerk under the Panchayat Samiti Kushalgarh, District Banswara; since the petitioner was not in good health at the relevant time and suffering from an ailment, he moved an application with a request to permit him to join his duty after recovery from the ailment.

3.4 However, after the first lot of selection, the recruitment initiated in the year 2013 got entangled in the litigation with respect to bonus marks for the experience gained by the candidates in various Schemes. Thus, the weightage as required to be granted in view of Rule 273 of the Rules of 1996 came to be examined and the Hon’ble Supreme Cour