IMPORTANT POINT
Eligibility criteria for reserved category candidates must be consistently applied across government agencies, allowing for rounding off of marks in qualifying examinations.

ORDER :

(Farjand Ali, J.)

1. The petitioner herein has preferred the instant writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India seeking a direction for the respondents to consider his candidature for appointment on the post of Assistant Teacher Level-I in pursuance of the advertisement dated 02.11.2022 issued by the respondent department.

2. Briefly stated, facts of the case are that the respondent Education Department issued an advertisement for filling up the posts of Assistant Teacher Level-I and II for Mahatma Gandhi (English Medium) Schools under the Rajasthan Contractual Hiring to Civil Posts Rules, 2022 on contract basis. The eligibility criteria prescribed for the post was that an aspirant must have passed Senior Secondary or equivalent examination with English medium with minimum 50% marks and must have Diploma in Elementary Education and he must have passed REET Level-I examination with minimum prescribed marks, of which validity must not have expired. The petitioner is a person belonging to Most Backward Class category. He is having the qualification of B.Com., BSTC and have secured 82 marks out of 150 marks in REET. Considering himself to be eligible for appointment, he applied in pursuance of the aforesaid advertisement. However, when the respondents did not consider his candidature on the ground that he was not eligible for appointment since a candidate belonging to reserved category must have secured minimum 55% marks in the REET and since the petitioner is having only 54.66% marks, therefore, he was not given appointment. Being aggrieved of the same the petitioner preferred a writ petition bearing S.B. Civil Writ Petition No.7490/2023, wherein an interim order was passed in his favour directing the respondents to provisionally allow him to appear in counselling/document verification process. Later on the respondent authorities, in accordance with the guidelines of the NCTE, issued the certificate declaring the petitioner "Eligible for Level-I" in REET-2022, hence, in view of the subsequent events, the petitioner withdrew the aforesaid writ petition. Be that as it may, the petitioner participated in the selection process and according to the criteria fixed, he secured 61.09775 marks, whereas the cut off marks for the category of MBC General and Female candidates is 51.7395. The respondent authorities issued a letter dated 19.05.2023 directing the selected candidates to submit their registration for verification of documents, but the name of the petitioner was not included in the said list. On approaching the respondents, he was informed that on account of condition No.3(1) of the advertisement prescribing minimum 55% in the REET Examination, which the petitioner is not fulfilling, his candidature cannot be considered for appointment on the post of Assistant Teacher Level-I. Being aggrieved of the same, he preferred the instant writ petition.

3. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the action of the respondents in not considering the candidature of the petitioner despite being fully eligible is illegal, unjust and arbitrary. He submits that on the one hand the nodal agency appointed by the State Government has issued the eligibility certificate to the petitioner for the REET Examination, 2022, but on the other hand the Education Department of the State Government is not accepting the same. He submits that the issue raised by the petitioner in the instant writ petition is squarely covered by the decision rendered by a co-ordinate Bench of this court at Jaipur in a batch of writ petitions led by Rajesh Kumar Yadav & Ors. Vs. State of Rajasthan & Ors. [S.B. Civil Writ Petition No.15541/2022], wherein the respondents have been directed to consider the candidature of similarly situated persons for appointment on the post of Teacher Grade II Level I and Level II. With these submissions, learned counsel for the petitioner prays for acceptance of the writ petition.

4. Per contra, learned DyGC submits that