IMPORTANT POINT
The court established that candidates must be allocated to their preferred posts based on merit, and that the allocation process must be fair and transparent, as per constitutional provisions and previous judicial rulings.

ORDER :

FARJAND ALI, J.

1. These four writ petitions preferred under Article 226 of the Constitution of India involve identical issue, therefore, the same are being disposed of by this common order.

2. The Rajasthan Public Service Commission, Ajmer issued a recruitment advertisement dated 09.04.2018 inviting applications from the eligible candidates to fill up the posts of Senior Teacher (Teacher Grade-II) in various subjects. The petitioners herein filled up the application forms and appeared in the written examination and ultimately they came to the selected on the post of Senior Teacher (Teacher Grade-II) in their respective subjects. It is relevant to note here that the respondents had taken a preference option form from the selected candidates, whereby they gave their order of preference for allotment of Mandal (Division). A copy of the preference option form has been annexed with each of these writ petitions as Annexure-2. The issue raised by the petitioners herein is that the on the one hand the respondents have allotted them Mandal much lower in the order of preference given by them and on the other hand, candidates belonging to exactly same category and having less merit position than the petitioners have been allotted the Mandals for which the petitioners had given higher preference. In each of the writ petition, the petitioners have mentioned the names and merit positions of such candidates. They, thus, pray that the respondents may be directed to allot them Mandal (Division) in accordance with the order of preference as given in Annexure-2 keeping in view their merit positions.

3. The controversy raised by the petitioners is squarely covered by the judgment passed by a Division Bench of this court in a batch of appeals led by D.B. Civil Special Appeal (Writ) No.815/2019 [State of Rajasthan & Ors. Vs. Poonam Sharma] on 29.08.2019, wherein it is held that :

13. The issue of giving weightage and-as far as possible-giving effect to the preference of a candidate who secures a high ranking in the merit list, while allocating a cadre (much in the same manner as the allocation of the preferred division, as in this case), was a subject matter of a Constitution Bench ruling of the Supreme Court in Union of India Vs. Ramesh Ram & Ors., (2010) 7 SCC 234. In that decision, the Court resolved the conflict between different judgments. The question was whether a merited reserved category candidate (MRC), pushed up into the general category merit list and treated as an open merit candidate, can be placed at a disadvantageous position vis-a-vis a reserved category candidate in regard to allocation of cadre, especially when the less merited candidate is granted the cadre of his/her choice. The Supreme Court observed as follows:-

“32. There is an obvious distinction between qualifying through an entrance test for securing admission in a medical college and qualifying in the UPSC examinations since the latter examination is conducted for filling up vacancies in the various civil services. In the former case, all the successful candidates receive the same benefit of securing ad-mission in an educational institution. However, in the latter case there are variations in the benefits that accrue to successful candidates because they are also competing amongst themselves to secure the service of their choice. For example, most candidates opt for at least one of the first three services [i.e. Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Foreign Service (IFS) and Indian Police Service (IPS)] when they are asked for preferences. A majority of the candidates prefer IAS as the first option. In this respect, a Re-served Category candidate who has qualified as part of the general list should not be disadvantaged by being assigned to a lower service against the vacancies in the General Category especially because if he had availed the benefit of his Reserved Category status, he would have got a service of a higher preference. With the obvious intention of