Point of Law: Employment and Service matter - Posts of Junior Engineer (Civil) - SC and ST category - Promotion/resignation/retirement/Selection - It is true that Rule 5(2) of Reservation Rules of 2005 provides that roster shall be maintained as a running account from year to year and will commence at commencement of a year at point following point which was utilized at end of previous year.

JUDGMENT :

Sanjeev Kumar, J.

1. This appeal under Clause 12 of the Letters Patent is directed against judgment and order dated 08.11.2017 passed by the learned Single Judge [“Writ Court”] in SWP No.1218/2016 titled Aneesh Bhagat and others v. State of J&K and others, whereby the Writ Court has dismissed the writ petition.

2. Background facts necessary for disposal of this appeal are that vide advertisement notice No.02 of 2014 dated 30.12.2014 issued by respondent No.2, 235 posts of Junior Engineer (Civil) with following breakup were notified for selection.

The appellants along with others, being eligible in terms of the advertisement notification, applied for the posts in question under SC category. They were shortlisted and interviewed by respondent No.2. On conclusion of the selection process, respondent No.2 published select list in newspaper “Daily Excelsior” in its issue dated 12.05.2016 and instead of selecting 23 candidates under SC category, selection was indicated to be made only of 19 candidates leaving four posts of SC category unfilled for want of some clarification from respondent No.1. Feeling aggrieved by keeping four posts under SC category unfilled by respondent No.2, three candidates under SC category, namely, Aneesh Bhagat, Nipun Kumar and Gulshan Kumar, who were next in the order of merit after one Jatinder Kumar Sargotra placed at serial No.1 in the wait list of SC category, filed SWP No.1218/2016 before a Single Bench of this Court. In the writ petition, the aforesaid three candidates sought quashing of the select list to the extent it placed them in the wait list instead of select list of SC category. They also prayed for a direction to respondent No.2 not to divert four posts under SC category to the category of ST by illegally operating the roster. It was also highlighted in the writ petition that four posts out of 23 posts notified under SC category had been kept unfilled by respondent No.2 pursuant to a representation received by it from one Fareed Ahmed Bajjad, father of a candidate under ST category, who brought it to the notice of respondent No.2 that roster had not been applied properly. It was his grievance that ST category having been provided 10% reservation should have got 24 posts and SC category with reservation of 8% should have been given 19 posts. Respondent Nos. 5 to 7 herein (ST candidates), who had staked their claim on four posts of SC category, that had been kept unfilled, had already filed SWP No.976/2016 seeking, inter alia, a writ of certiorari for quashing communication dated 05.04.2016 sent by respondent No.1 to respondent No.2, whereby and wherein requisition for selection against ST category was made of 20 vacancies instead of 24. They, thus, claimed 10% quota of ST out of 235 posts notified for selection. Both the writ petitions were contested by respondent No.2. The Writ Court considered both the writ petitions together and while agreeing with the stand of the official respondents that there had been error in calculating the posts earmarked for SC and ST categories, allowed SWP No.976/2016 filed by respondent Nos. 5 to 7 herein, however, SWP No.1218/2016 filed by Aneesh Bhagat and two others was dismissed vide order and judgment dated 08.11.2017. It is this order of the Writ Court, which is assailed before us.

3. Having heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the record, we find no good ground to interfere with the impugned judgment.

4. Admittedly, the writ petitioners, who filed SWP No.1218/2016, have not filed any appeal and, therefore, shall be deemed to have accepted the judgment impugned. The appellants herein, who claim to be next in the order of merit under SC category, are before us in this appeal after special leave granted by this Court vide order dated 0