The main legal point established is that candidates cannot challenge the lack of reservation benefits after participating in the selection process, and the reservation policy may not apply to the preliminary examination.

ORDER :

1. With the consent of the parties, hearing of the matter has been done through video conferencing and there is no complaint whatsoever regarding the visual/audio connectivity.

I.A. No. 4034 of 2020

This interlocutory application has been preferred under Section 5 of the Limitation Act for condoning the delay of 136 days in preferring this Letters Patent Appeal.

2. Heard parties.

3. Having regard to the averments made in the application and submissions made on behalf of the parties, we are of the view that the appellants were prevented from sufficient cause in filing the appeal within the period of limitation. As such, the delay of 136 days in preferring the appeal is hereby condoned.

4. I.A. No. 4034 of 2020 stands allowed.

L.P.A. No. 226 of 2018

5. The instant intra-Court appeal is under Clause 10 of Letters Patent of the High Court of Judicature at Patna directed against the order/judgment dated 16.11.2017 passed by learned Single Judge of this Court in W.P. (C) No. 6272 of 2017 whereby and whereunder the writ petition has been dismissed by declining to quash the result of preliminary examination published on 30.10.2017 for Jharkhand Combined Police Sub-Inspector Competitive Examination, 2017, hereinafter referred as the Competitive Examination in question, pursuant to Advertisement No. 05/2017 on the ground that the reservation policy has not been followed in the preliminary examination result in its true letter and spirit so far as Extreme Backward Class (Schedule-1) [in short “EBC”] and Backward Class (Schedule-2) [in short “BC”] are concerned.

6. The brief facts of the case which are required to be enumerated herein read hereunder as:-

The writ petitioners (two in number) have found themselves to be eligible for consideration of selection for the post of Police Sub-Inspector and as such, they made application for consideration in pursuance of the Advertisement No. 05/2017 published by Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission.

They participated in the process of selection which were in three stages (i) the preliminary examination which was conducted on 31.08.2017, result of which was published on 30.10.2017 wherein the petitioner No. 1, who had applied under OBC-1 category, got total 332.6897959200 marks out of 360 while the petitioner No. 2 had applied under OBC-1 category and had got 329.4145161000 marks out of 360. The total number of candidates for participating in the main examination has been decided to be selected as 15095 candidates. The concern of the writ petitioners was that the result of the preliminary examination was not category wise and the cut-off marks of only four categories have been published on the internet i.e., Unreserved Category, Schedule Caste, Schedule Tribe and Primitive Tribe by furnishing the cut of marks category wise.

It is the further case of the writ petitioners that although in the advertisement being Advertisement No. 05/2017 as under Clause-2 thereof it has been stipulated that there are total five number of categories i.e. Unreserved Category, Schedule Caste, Schedule Tribe, Other Backward Class-1 and Backward Class-2 but in the result of the preliminary examination, the cut off marks were published only for Unreserved Category, Schedule Caste, Schedule Tribe and Primitive Tribe and as such, no candidate of Other Backward Class-1 and Backward Class-2 have been selected while as per the advertisement, total number of vacancies for Other Backward Class-1 are 209 out of 3019 and total number of vacancies for Backward Class-2 are 172 out of 3019.

It is the further case of the writ petitioners that they came to know from the website of the Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission that no candidate belonging to the Other Backward Class-1 and Backward Class-2 has been shortlisted or selected even though the cut-off marks for OBC-1 and BC-2 has been published. On the basis of the aforesaid backgroun