The allocation of excessive marks for the viva voce test and the arbitrary conduct of the viva voce test without any guidelines or criteria renders the selection process illegal and unconstitutional.

1. In all these petitioners claims have been preferred and challenges thrown to the appointment of teachers, being public employment and national wealth, where the petitioners are alleged have been denied their due share under the guise of selection process by which the merit is stated to have been eroded and the inefficient, ineligible and favourites selected and appointed as teachers in the district of Kathua on extraneous considerations and in disregard to the rules applicable or the administrative guidance prescribed.

2. It is alleged that the respondent-selection board vide advertisement notice No. 2 of 1987 dated 2-1-1987 invited applications on prescribed forms from permanent residents of the State for the appointment as teachers in the districts of Kathua, Jammu and Rajouri, prescribing therein the minimum qualification of matriculation and above for the posts advertised. The petitioners applied on the prescribed form and after preliminary verification of qualifications the selection board decided to hold interviews of the eligible candidates for which interview cards were issued in favour of such candidates including the petitioners. It is submitted that the interviews for the posts in the District of Kathua were held at four tehsil headquarters namely, Billawar, Kathua, Hiranagar and Basohli. It is alleged that no definite system or pattern was adopted by the members of the board conducting interviews nor was any uniform standard, criteria or test laid down for the said purpose. The interviews are alleged to have not been conducted by the board jointly but by individual members. Despite completion of the interviews by the end of December, 1988, the list of selected candidates was not published either by the respondent-board or any other authority. Individual appointment orders are stated to have been issued by the District Education Officer (DEO) in favour of different candidates being respondents 9 to 572 in Writ petition No. 1048 of 1989. The petitioners approached the DEO, Kathua for the issue of the list of the selected candidates to enable the petitioners to find out about their own position but no such list was issued till the appointment orders in favour of the selected candidates had been issued. It is submitted that from the list issued to the petitioners glaring illegalities and irregularities have come to light. It is submitted that no specific, reasonable method was adopted by the selection board for evaluating the suitability of the candidates who had applied for the post. It is alleged that as no norms and criterion is laid down by the board for making the selection, the whole process or selection and subsequently appointment of selected candidates is liable to be set aside. In the absence of a rational, uniform, non-discriminatory standard the whole selection process is liable to be quashed. The petitioners who claim to be better qualified and possessing higher academic degrees have been ignored whereas the respondents; with lesser qualifications have been selected on the whims of the authorities and the Board. The petitioners claim that comparative merit assessed on the basis of uniform, rational and non-discriminatory standard which are applied objectively while assessing the merit of each candidate, alone could have led to the just and proper selection. The selection is alleged to have been made on the basis of the religion and place of birth rendering it liable to be quashed under Articles 14 & 15 of the Constitution of India, The respondents have allegedly made reservation on the basis of some backward areas whereas no such reservation had been made in the district of Kathua. The selection is alleged to have been made on the basis of vacancies allotted to different tehsils of district Kathua and further to different blocks within the tehsil. The selection is further alleged to have been made entirely on the basis of the interview conducted by the individual members of the Board in which no definit

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