The main legal point established in the judgment is the authority of the Subordinate Services Selection Board to lay down criteria for selection under para 6(d) of the notification dated 18.1.1970, resolving conflicting views and upholding the selection in certain judgments.

Adarsh Kumar Goel, J.

1. This order will dispose of a bunch of 47 petitions being CWP No. 16978 of 1995, CWP Nos. 884, 2560, 4261, 4779, 4780, 5444, 5448, 5449, 5469, 5506, 5539 to 5541, 5572, 5677, 6177, 6259, 6472, 6543, 6891, 6892, 7523, 7618, 7638, 8152, 8328, 8379, 9363, 10860, 10861, 10888, 10940, 10979, 10998, 11191, 12143, 12895, 12896, 12897, 13169, 13751, 14015, 15382, 15412, 16628 of 1996 and CWP No. 15412 of 1997, which has been placed before this Bench in pursuance of the order of learned Single Judge dated 11.2.2009 to the following effect :-

"These matters have been received back from Honble the Supreme Court by way of remand. In the remand order, Honble the Supreme Court held as follows :- "The two judgments, namely, the judgment passed in Neelams case (supra) and the judgment impugned in the present appeals are contradictory on the question of interpretation of para 6(d) though one of the Honble Judges figures in both the judgments. Normally, we would have resolved the conflict, but one Honble Judge being common both the judgments, we intend to leave the matter to the High Court itself to reconsider the whole position, particularly as some other infirmities in the judgment have been pointed out to us to which a reference shall be made presently." In these circumstances, papers are directed to be laid before Honble the Chief Justice for constituting an appropriate Bench to settle this question conclusively."

2 The matter arises out of challenge to selection to 258 posts of Lecturers (School Cadre) in pursuance of advertisements dated 22.1.1995 followed by further notification dated 10.10.1995. The selection was challenged in various writ petitions in this court and were dealt with by four separate orders, namely:

(1) Order dated 4.11.1996 in CWP 19062 of 1995 (Krishna Kumari v. State of Haryana and others);

(2) Order dated 18.2.1998 in CWP No. 17053 of 1997 (Smt. Neelam v. The Subordinate Services Selection Board and others);

(3) Order dated 18.5.1998 in CWP No. 10940 of 1996 (Krishan Gopal and others v. State of Haryana and others) and;

(4) Order dated 25.8.1998 in CWP No. 3692 of 1998 (Pushap Lata and another v. State of Haryana and others).

3. While judgments in Krishna Kumari, Neelam and Pushap Lata (supra) upheld the selection, in Krishan Gopal (supra), selection was quashed.

4. Main reason for quashing was that Selection Board could not have itself framed criteria for selection when such criteria had not been laid down by the Government. It was also observed that Chairman of the Board did not convene any meeting for evolving the criteria and the criteria was laid down much before the advertisement was published. Selection criteria was applied only for certain categories of posts and not for others. Apart from this aspect, after perusing the record, it was found that no objective consideration was given to the performance of the candidates with reference to important elements like, initiative, alertness, resourcefulness, dependableness, capacity for clear and logical presentation, adaptability, aptitude for the post etc. Statement of counsel for the State was also recorded that Chairman and Members of the Board had not awarded marks to the candidates on the basis of any objective yardstick, nor it was clear whether any weightage was given to the opinion expressed by the expert and, thus, marks were awarded for extraneous consideration and thus selection was tainted and malice.

5. According to learned counsel for the parties, judgments in Krishna Kumari, Neelam and Pushap Lata (supra) have attained finality, while appeals were filed against judgment in Krishan Gopal (supra), by the aggrieved parties before the Honble Supreme Court being Civil Appeals No. 516-527 of 2009, Jaipal Singh and others v. State of Haryana and others, decided on 18.2.2000.

6. The Honble Supreme Court remanded the matter to this Court for fresh decision with the observation that conflicting views on interpretation of para 6(d