The Selection Committee, although functus officio, is a proper party to address allegations made against it in judicial proceedings.

JUDGMENT

Bhaskar Raj Pradhan, J. - The petitioners have filed the present writ petition against nine respondents. Respondent no. 1 and 3 are the State of Sikkim and the Department of Personnel, Administrative Reforms and Training; Respondent no. 2 is the Sikkim Public Service Commission (SPSC); respondents no. 5 and 6 are the Sikkim University and University Grants Commission, respectively; respondents no.7, 8 and 9 are Assistant Professors in various Government Colleges (respondents 7 and 8 belong to the Department of Geography and respondent no.9, the department of Tourism); respondent no. 4 is the Selection Committee through its Chairman. The grievance in the writ petition is the non-selection of the petitioners and the selection of respondent nos. 7, 8 and 9.

2. It is the case of the petitioners that the Selection Committee was illegally constituted and that it has not applied its mind. It is further alleged that the Selection Committee have selected candidates who are not qualified and failed to consider the petitioners who have the required qualifications. It is alleged that the Selection Committee have acted against the University Grants Commission’s Acts and Regulations; have not verified and examined the genuineness and authenticity of the articles published of the successful candidates and have violated the provisions of the manual of the Sikkim Public Service Commission. Besides the aforesaid grounds of challenge against the Selection Committee, the petitioners have also alleged in their pleadings that the Selection Committee have committed various other illegalities in the selection process. In paragraph 18(v), the petitioners have alleged “That the selected candidates namely, Pranesh Pandey (Economics), Santosh Sharma (Economics) were scholars under same subject expert Prof. Manish Choubey (Dept. of Economics, Sikkim University) who was present during Classroom Demonstration. Ph.D. Registration numbers of the above named successful candidates working under Prof. Manish Chowbey as Ph.D Scholars are 14/PhD/ECON/01 and 14/PhD/ECON/02 respectively. They had been working under the same subject expert since 2014 as PhD scholars who had conducted the classroom demonstration, which is highly unjustified, unfair and objectionable.” Besides the aforesaid, it is also alleged that the selected candidates, i.e., respondent no.7, 8 and 9 had not satisfied various requirements and despite that they were selected by the Selection Committee in violation of the applicable rules. It is alleged that the Selection Committee was not constituted in the manner required and it also did not have the nominee of the Vice-Chancellor of the Sikkim University as required. It is alleged that the Selection Committee have not given due weightage to the extra additional qualifications secured by the petitioners and that the selection procedure was not transparent, objective and credible.

3. The SPSC has filed a counter-affidavit. However, the Selection Committee has not and instead, filed this application, being I.A. No. 1 of 2020, under Order I Rule 10(2) of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 for deletion of the Selection Committee as respondent no.4 from the array of parties. In the application, the Selection Committee have quoted the prayers in the writ petition and submitted that the task of the Selection Committee was only to conduct recruitment/se