The main legal point established in the judgment is that the cancellation of appointments due to serious irregularities in the selection process is justified, and the principles of natural justice must be followed in such cases.

Heard Counsel for the parties.

2. This petition arises out of an order of termination of the petitioner dated 3rd January, 2003 passed by the Deputy Commissioner (Administration), Trade Tax, Aligarh.

3. By advertisement dated 14th August, 2002 applications were invited for filling up backlog of vacancies of 7 posts of Class-IV employees in the Trade Tax Department District Aligarh from amongst Scheduled Caste candidates. Pursuant to the advertisement, petitioners applied for appointment and after selection and interview they were selected. Petitioner Nos. 1, 2 and 4 to 7 joined on 24th September, 2002 and petitioner No. 3 joined on 10th December, 2002 pursuant to the appointment letters issued in their favour dated 23rd September, 2002.

4. By an order dated 20th December, 2002 (Annexure-6 to the writ petition) the State Government cancelled the appointments, as a consequence of which the Deputy Commissioner (Administration) Trade Tax, Aligarh issued identical termination orders dated 3rd January, 2003, which have been impugned in the present petition alongwith the Government Order dated 20th December, 2002.

5. The bone of contention, and the legal question involved in the present writ petition, is whether the principles of natural justice are to be followed in cancelling the appointments of the petitioners.

6. A short counter-affidavit was filed on behalf of the respondents. In para 4 of the short counter- affidavit it has been stated that the merit list of the selected candidates was not prepared properly and after enquiry it was found that petitioner No. 6 Pravendra Kumar has manipulated his marks in connivance of certain responsible persons of the respondent office. It is also mentioned that out of 3559 applicants, interview letters were issued only to 2204 applicants, but the decision of the rejection of 1550 applications was never taken by the selection committee. It has been averred in paras 18 to 20 of the writ petition that the impugned orders have been passed in violation of principles of natural justice and without affording any opportunity of hearing to the petitioners. These averments have been rebutted in para 7 of the supplementary counter-affidavit of Sri A. N. Tripathi. The Counsel for the petitioner has urged that the present case is a case of cancellation and it is settled that cancellation can take place only after complying the principles of natural justice. Reliance has been placed by learned Counsel for the petitioners on the following decisions reported in :

(i) 1990 (1) UPLBEC 1 (SC), Sridhar v. Nagar Palika, Jaunpur;

(ii) 1991 Suppl (1) SCC 330, Shrawan Kumar Jha and others v. State of Bihar and others;

(iii) J. T. 1998 (6) SC 464, Basudev Tiwari v. Sido Kanhu University and others;

(iv) 1998 (2) LBESR 190 (All) : 1998 (1) UPLBEC 23, Vishwamitra Yadav v. U. P. State Public Service Tribunal;

(v) 1998 (1) UPLBEC 1232, Mohd. Raish Ahmad v. State of U. P. and others;

(vi) 1998 (2) LBESR 322 (All) : 1998 (1) ESC 320, Muneshwar Dayal v. Zila Karyakram Adhikari;

(vii) 1999 ACJ 243, Jawed Ahmad v. State of U. P. and others;

(viii) 1999 (1) AWC 853, Sanjeev Kumar and others v. State of U. P. and others.

7. Learned Standing Counsel has urged on the strength of judgment rendered by the apex Court in the case of Ashwani Kumar and others v. State of Bihar, reported in JT 1997 (1) SC 243, in which it has been observed in para 14 that if the recruitment process is not completed by following the procedure prescribed under the rules, then the selection is illegal and appointments made pursuant thereto are also illegal and while cancelling the appointment principles of natural justice are not required to be followed. Opportunity of hearing is not required in case where examination has been cancelled and the larger number of persons appeared in the examination. He further submits that the departmental proceedings have been initiated against the officers, who were involved in the irregularities, but the proceedin