IMPORTANT POINT
Candidates must adhere to procedural timelines to seek judicial relief; failure to do so results in forfeiture of rights to claim benefits from subsequent legal decisions.

JUDGMENT :

Arun Monga, J.

1. Such are the vagaries of the litigation that petitioner herein having remained throughout diligent, except at one point of time, to pursue his cause, has yet been left completely hapless for no fault of his for the past more than 20 years. Notwithstanding that, he has had to resort to repeated foray of litigation before this Court. More of it later.

2. Claim of the petitioner herein is for seeking appointment on the post of Teacher Gr.III pursuant to an advertisement No.1/98 with all consequential benefits w.e.f. the date respondent No.5 was given appointment. Further, he seeks quashing of an order dated 09.06.2014 (Annex.13), vide which the respondent No.5 was granted appointment, who is admittedly lower in merit to the petitioner.

3. Brief facts of the case are that the respondents issued an advertisement for the post of Teacher Gr.III in the year 1998. Pursuant to which, the petitioner participated in the written exam and obtained 74.94%. However, after deduction of his bonus marks, his marks came down to 59.94%, but his name figured on the select list of meritorious candidates.

3.1 Vide letter dated 18.12.2003, the respondents wrote to the Controller, L.N. Mithila University, Darbhanga for sending the mark sheet of the petitioner along with other candidates after verification. The University vide its letter dated 14.02.2004 verified all the mark sheets of the petitioner and other four candidates.

3.2 Vide order dated 03.07.2004, the respondents though gave appointment to Mr. Deepak Kumar, Tejmal Gupta and Sanjay Kumar, who are less meritorious than the petitioner, but , the petitioner was not given appointment. Aggrieved, the petitioner filed SBCWP No.5009/2004 before this Court. Vide order dated 07.01.2014, this Court disposed of the said petition with a direction to the petitioner to file fresh representation before the respondents.

3.3 Pursuant to the order dated 07.01.2014, the petitioner submitted a representation before the respondents. However, vide order dated 09.06.2014, the representation of the petitioner was rejected on the ground that the merit list was no more in currency. Hence this petition.

4. Defence taken by the respondents in their reply is as below: 4.1 Merit list was prepared as per the circular dated 10.06.1998 issued by the State Government at the relevant point of time. 10 bonus marks for the district and 5 bonus marks for rural area candidates were included for a candidate while preparing the merit list. According to which, petitioner was not falling in the merit-criteria. The petitioner had since secured his Bachelor's degree in Education from outside the State, it could not be considered for want of verification of his degree-certificate. Thereafter, in compliance of the judgment dated 30.07.2002 passed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court and circular dated 10.10.2002 issued by the State Government, fresh merit list was prepared for the candidates who were appointed after 18.11.1999, deducting above-said 10+5 bonus marks.

4.2 However, at the relevant point of time, the petitioner did not approach either this Court or the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India within the time stipulated by the Hon'ble Supreme Court i.e. before 18.11.1999. In other words, relief of consideration of candidature was given by the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India to the limited group of persons, those who had approached Court in time. The petitioner in the instant case was not party-petitioner/intervener in that set of litigation. The present writ has been filed by the petitioner at a belated stage. Hence, in view of observations and directions of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in case of Kailash Chandra Sharma's case, he is not entitled to get any relief from this Court.

4.3 Similarly situated other persons were no doubt given appointment, but in compliance of the orders passed and directions issued by this Court as well as Hon'ble Supreme Court of India. Neither there is any discrimination, nor is there any arbitrarine