IMPORTANT POINT
The main legal point established in the judgment is the permissibility of migration of reserved category candidates into the open category in the selection process, and the exercise of writ jurisdiction in public law remedy.

ORDER :

Shree Chandrashekhar, J.

The writ petitioners (hereinafter referred as appellant) are aggrieved of the order dated 14th July 2022 by which WP(C) No.1023 of 2022 has been dismissed.

2. The plea set up by the appellant that in the Preliminary Test migration of reserved category candidates into the open category is not permissible has not been accepted by the writ Court.

3. Briefly stated, Advertisement No. 05 of 2019 was issued by the Jharkhand Public Service Commission (in short, 'Commission') in October, 2019 inviting applications from eligible candidates for filling up 637 posts of Assistant Engineer (Civil-542) and (Mechanical-95) in the Road Construction Department and the Water Resources and Drinking Water & Sanitation Department of the Government of Jharkhand. Pursuant to the said advertisement, the appellant applied under the unreserved category for the post of Assistant Engineer (Civil) for which the Preliminary Test was conducted on 19th January 2020. The list of the selected candidates in the Preliminary Test was published on 14th August 2020 – the appellant was declared unsuccessful.

4. As noticed above, the writ Court rejected the challenge laid to the said result by the appellant observing as under :

“13. To appreciate the rival contentions of learned counsel for the parties, it would be appropriate to go through the relevant provisions of Jharkhand Engineering Service Appointment Rules, 2016 as well as the conditions of Advertisement No. 05/2019. Under serial no. 6(1)(iii)(ch) of Schedule-II of Rules, 2016, it has specifically been provided that in any particular year the Commission will fix the number of candidates for appearing in mains examination. If it is necessary to conduct Preliminary Examination, then 10 times candidates against category-wise vacancies shall be selected for Mains Examination. In the said advertisement also, under Clause 11(A)(iv), it has been mentioned that 10 times candidates against category-wise vacancies shall be shortlisted for Mains Examination.

14. The petitioners have neither challenged the provisions of Rules, 2016 nor any term of the advertisement, thus without entering into the validity of the same, this Court proceeds to examine as to whether the relevant stipulations have duly been followed by the respondent-JPSC while shortlisting the candidates in the preliminary test.

15. Learned counsel for the respondent-JPSC has placed before this Court a chart containing details of vacancies and the number of candidates shortlisted in the preliminary test which is reproduced herein below for ready reference in the present case:

16. Thus, under SC, BC-I and BC-II categories 10 times candidates have been shortlisted, however, under EWS and ST categories, 10 times candidates have not been selected which is justified by the respondent-JPSC stating that sufficient number of candidates have not got minimum qualifying marks under the said categories. So far unreserved category is concerned, all those candidates who got the cut off marks of the said category, have been shortlisted under that category irrespective of the fact that some of them belonged to reserved category.

5. The writ Court has also referred to the