IMPORTANT POINT
The court ruled that candidates must adhere to the selection process terms, and failure to appear for document verification despite multiple opportunities negates any claim for relief.

ORDER :

HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE RAJESH SHANKAR

The present batch of writ petitions except W.P.(S) No. 6112 of 2023 have been filed for issuance of direction upon the respondents, in particular Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission (JSSC) to conduct document verification of the petitioners as they were declared successful in the Combined Graduate Trained Teacher Competitive Examination (CGTTCE)-2016 held pursuant to Advertisement No. 21/2016 published by JSSC, but neither call letters inviting them for document verification were issued nor any notice for the same was published in any newspaper due to which they could not appear on the date fixed for document verification. The writ petition being W.P.(S) No. 6112 of 2023 has been filed for issuance of direction upon the respondents to conduct document verification of the petitioner for appointment on the post of Trained Graduate Teacher in the subject ‘Sanskrit’ as after being declared successful in the said written examination, he was called for document verification to be held on 31.07.2023, but could not appear due to illness. Further prayer has been made in all the writ petitions for issuance of direction upon the respondents to consider the cases of the petitioners for appointment on the post of Trained Graduate Teacher in the concerned subjects and consequently, to issue appointment letters to them.

2. Argument of learned counsel for the petitioners of respective writ petitions is that the petitioners are graduate in the concerned subjects securing more than 45% marks and they possess degree of B.Ed. (Bachelor of Education) or equivalent recognized by the National Council for Teacher Education and as such, they are qualified to be appointed on the post of Trained Graduate Teacher in Government Secondary Schools of State of Jharkhand in the subjects for which they had applied. The JSSC published Advertisement No. 21/2016 in order to conduct Combined Graduate Trained Teacher Competitive Exam-2016 for making appointment on the post of Trained Graduate Teacher in Government Secondary Schools of State of Jharkhand in the concerned subjects and the petitioners being eligible candidates, applied for appointment on the said post.

3. It is further submitted that the petitioners were issued Admit Cards and thereafter they appeared in the written test conducted on various dates between 29.10.2017 to 02.12.2017. Thereafter, the results were published on the basis of district wise merit list, however, the same was challenged before this Court by filing several writ petitions i.e., W.P.(C) No. 1387 of 2017 and other analogous cases (Soni Kumari & Ors. Vs. State of Jharkhand & Ors.), wherein vide judgment dated 21.09.2020, reported in (2020) 4 JBCJ 207 (FB) (HC)], the Full Bench of this Court held that reserving the posts by the State for those candidates who were residents of particular districts of the State of Jharkhand was unconstitutional. The said judgment rendered by the Full Bench was, however, challenged before the Hon’ble Supreme Court and in the light of the judgment rendered in the case “Satyajit Kumar & Ors. Vs. State of Jharkhand & Ors.” reported in (2022) SCC online SC 954 as well as the orders passed in Contempt Petition (C) No. 612/2020 arising out of Civil Appeal No. 4044 of 2022 (Soni Kumari & Ors. Vs. K. Ravi Kumar & Ors.) and other contempt applications, further results were declared by the JSSC on one or other dates, preparing the same on the basis of state wise merit list, which were uploaded only on the website of JSSC and neither individual call letters were sent to the petitioners nor the results were published in any newspaper.

4. It is also submitted that no information whatsoever either through e-mail or message (SMS) was ever sent to the petitioners, though the details of phone numbers and emails were already mentioned in the application forms of the petitioners submitted before the JSSC. Though the petitioners were sent message (SMS)/e-mail to download their respecti