Candidates cannot challenge recruitment criteria after participating without prior objection, and valid transport vehicle licenses are necessary for eligibility.

ORDER

1. These petitions relate to the recruitment to the post of Drivers for which the High Court Administration had issued an advertisement on 22.07.2020. In all these petitions, one or the other or both of the following issues arise:-

2. First issue is with respect to the cut off marks prescribed by the High Court Administration for eligibility for the written main examination on the basis of the screening test conducted. The criteria applied by the Administration is to call 10 times the number of vacancies notified for each category of candidates such as General, SC, ST, OBC etc. In some cases this resulted into reserved category cut off marks coming higher than the general category.

3. Contention of petitioners is that this is not permissible and the administration therefore committed a legal error in the process of shortlisting. The second issue arising in some of the petitions is with respect to requirement of holding a valid transport vehicle license by the candidates. Broadly speaking, the contention of the petitioner is that RTO authorities have issued driving license in their favour for four wheeler and that there would be no separate requirement of the licenses being issued for driving a transport vehicle.

4. It is undisputable that both these issues have been decided by the High Court by two separate judgments. Both these judgments arise out of the same recruitment process. In case of Khushi Ram Gurjar Vs. Rajasthan High Court in Civil Writ Petition No.10274/2020 and connected petitions, a Division Bench of the High Court vide judgment dated 28.10.2021 after referring to earlier decisions of the High Court and several Supreme Court judgments held and observed as under:-

'Considering the view expounded by Division Benches of this Court in the above cases while placing reliance on the judgment of Hon'ble the Supreme Court in the case of Chattar Singh (supra), it is clear that the concept of vertical reservation and migration to the higher category cannot be applied in a shortlisting exercise which is provided under Rule 25 of the Rajasthan Subordinate Courts (Driver and Class IV Employees) Service Rules, 2017. The contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner that a similar view taken by the Division Bench of this Court in a bunch of appeals led by D.B. Civil Special Appeal (Writ) No.635/2016'State of Raj. and another. Vs. Hanuman Jat and others' has been stayed by Hon'ble the Apex Court, is not quite accurate. The order passed by the Supreme Court shows that the judgment of the High Court is not stayed, instead following interim formula was provided:-

'It is submitted that in view of the fact that by the interim orders, recruitment for the purpose offilling up the posts of Patwaris is held up, the State is greatly handicapped in its administration. For the interim measure, the State as well as the appellants agree that the ends of justice would be met for the time being by permitting all the candidates who secure equal to or more than 104.51 marks in the preliminary examination (irrespective of the category to which candidates belong) be permitted to appear in the final examination without prejudice to the rights of the parties and the various question of law arising in the appeals. The respondents are permitted to complete the process of selection of Patwaris in accordance with law.'

5. In addition thereto, we may observe that the recruitment notification made a specific stipulation in Clause 12(1)(vi) that a screening test would be held for shortlisting the candidates and that the list of the candidate declared successful for participating in the final list of recruitment i.e. job test and personal interview would be prepared 'category-wise'. This recruitment condition of the advertisement was not challenged by any of the petitioners before applying and participating in the recruitment process. Thus, they cannot be allowed to do so at this belated stage when the result of screening test is already been declared.