Teaching experience certified by government school Principal qualifies for recruitment marks despite unauthorized PTA/SMC appointment; equity protects selected candidate's regularized service while granting petitioner parallel appointment with notional benefits.

JUDGMENT :

SANDEEP SHARMA, J.

1. Precisely, the question, which needs to be determined in the case at hand, is “whether experience certificate (Annexure P-1 Colly.) Issued by the Principal, Government Senior Secondary School Gumma, whereby it came to be certified that petitioner herein worked as Art & Craft Teacher w.e.f. 20.7.2009 to 21.6.2012, could be ignored by the Selection Committee while considering candidature of the petitioner for the post of Drawing Master on batch-wise basis that too on the ground that appointment was made by PTA/SMC of Government Senior Secondary School Gumma without prior permission of the department.”

2. Key facts, which may be relevant for adjudication of the case at hand, are that in the month of July 2017, respondent-State initiated process for batch wise selection for filing up vacant posts of C&V Language Teacher and Drawing Master. Petitioner herein alongwith private respondent No.3 being eligible also came to be considered in the said process. However, private respondent No.3 came to be selected on account of his having secured more marks than the petitioner i.e. 3.75 marks, whereas petitioner secured 3.66 marks in total.

3. Since it came to be transpired to the petitioner that teaching certificate submitted by him was not taken into consideration by the department, as a result thereof, he was not granted additional 1.5 marks, he got less marks than respondent No.3. Since petitioner had submitted teaching certificate issued by the Principal of Government Senior Secondary School, Gumma, specifically certifying therein that petitioner had worked w.e.f. 20.7.2009 to 21.6.2012, but yet respondents failed to take note of the same, he approached erstwhile HP Administrative Tribunal by way of OA No. 6189 of 2017 titled as Anand Swarup v. State of Himachal Pradesh and Ors., however on account of its abolishment, matter came to be transferred to this Court and same was registered as CWPOA No. 24 of 2019, which came to be allowed on 2.11.2020 with further direction to the respondents to reevaluate the merit on the strength of documents adduced on record by the respective parties.

4. Pursuant to afore direction issued by this Court in writ petition detailed herein above, respondents passed order dated 23.12.2020 (Annexure P-4), stating therein that Committee has submitted its report on 23.12.2020 and as per reevaluation conducted by the Committee, private respondent is more meritorious than the petitioner. Since authorities concerned while passing aforesaid order dated 23.12.2020, nowhere took note of teaching certificate submitted by the petitioner, coupled with the fact that needful was not done in terms of observation made by this Court in afore CWPOA, petitioner has approached this Court in the instant proceedings, praying therein for following main relief:

“i. That the impugned office order dated 23.12.2020 (ANNEXURE P- 4) being illegal and arbitrary may kindly be quashed and set-aside and the respondent state may kindly be directed to offer appointment to the petitioner with all consequential service benefits from the date of the appointment of the private respondent.”

5. In nutshell, the grouse of the petitioner, as has been highlighted in the petition and further canvassed by Mr.Tijender Singh, learned counsel for the petitioner is that this Court while passing judgment dated 2.11.2020 passed in CWPOA No. 24 of