The principle of equity and justice must guide recruitment processes, balancing the ramifications of alleged fraud against the realities of long service and established candidates’ reliance on their positions.

JUDGMENT :

KRISHNA S. DIXIT, J.

In all these Intra Court Appeals, challenge is essentially to a learned Single Judge’s order dated 28.03.2024 whereby contesting Respondents’ W.P.(C) No.18706 of 2015 having been favoured, relief is accorded to them as under:

“22.In the result, the writ petition is allowed. The impugned order under Annexure-12 is hereby quashed. The opposite party Nos.2 and 3 are directed to recast the merit list by excluding the Vocational/Upasastri candidates (opposite party Nos.4, 5 and 6) and by issuing appropriate order of engagement in favour of the petitioners either as Sikshya Sahayaks or in any equivalent post without any further delay and in any case, not later than four months.”

2. FOUNDATIONAL FACTS:

2.1. The Collector of Bhadrak District, vide advertisement dated 08.12.2011, had invited applications for the posts of Sikshya Sahayaks. The advertisement prescribed educational qualification of +2 Examinations in Science/Arts/Commerce or its equivalent as declared by Appropriate Authority coupled with C.T. Training. Respondents along with others had applied for the post and got selected. In the Merit List of different categories, the candidates with Vocational Course were not included. Some of those candidates filed WP(C) Nos.6438 & 6458 of 2011. A learned Single Judge, vide order dated 18.03.2011, directed consideration of the candidatures of applicants, who had completed +2 Vocational Course with C.T. Training. He had also directed reframing of the provisional Select List. Accordingly, that was done.

2.2. At this stage, some of the candidates similarly circumstanced qua the answering Respondents herein had raised a grievance before the authorities that some of the applicants had done Vocational Course and Upasastri Course by suppressing the fact of their passing +2 Arts/Commerce/Science Examination. They having alleged fraud. Another learned Single Judge, vide order dated 24.03.2011 entered in W.P.(C) No.7428/2011 directed the District Project Coordinator, Bhadrak to consider the said grievance within three weeks. Accordingly, an inquiry was conducted into the allegations of fake certificates. Before concluding the inquiry, a second Merit List was drawn and that included the candidates who had allegedly done Vocational Course and Upasastri Course in a clandestine way. This was put in challenge in WP(C) No.18256/2011 and yet another learned Single Judge vide order dated 15.07.2011 directed completion of the inquiry and taking of action based on inquiry report with a rider that those who were facing the allegation shall not be enlisted in the Merit List. Some of the candidates had filed an undertaking that they had not passed any +2 Course Examination other than Vocational/Upasastri Examination and that if this is found to be not true, they could be disengaged from the post in question. Therefore, conditional Engagement Orders were issued subject to the outcome of WP(C) No.7478/2011 that was since pending.

2.3. The inquiry was concluded and it was found that all those candidates, who had passed +2 Examination in Arts/Commerce/Science, had given the false undertaking despite having prosecuted Vocational/Upasastri Courses in contravention of Orissa Higher Secondary Act, 1982 & Orissa Higher Secondary Regulations, 1983. Six such candidates including Resp. No.4- Tapaswini Jena, Resp. No.5-Banajini Mishra & Resp. No.6-Pratima Manjari Kar. Those candidates had filed WP(C) No.32024/2011 in which interim protection from removal was granted by a learned Single Judge. Those of them, who were not given Engagement Orders, had also filed W.P.(C) No.5077/2014, etc. seeking a direction for issuance of Engagement Orders. All these petitions were disposed off by a common order dated 05.05.2014 with the following direction:

“In view of the above, the Collector-cum-C.E.O. S.S.A. Bhadrak is directed to take a decision by taking into c