By the Court.—The special appeal has arisen from the judgment of a learned Single Judge dated 16 April 2015.

2. An advertisement was issued by the Electricity Service Commission (Commission) for recruitment on 2211 posts of Technician Grade-II (Trainee) Electrical. Of these posts, the posts reserved for OBC, Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe candidates were as follows:

(i) OBC – 597 posts;

(ii) Scheduled Castes – 464 posts; and

(iii) Scheduled Tribes – 44 posts.

Thus, out of 2211 posts that were advertised, 1105 were reserved. 1106 posts were unreserved and were to be filled up by open competition. The selection process comprised of a written test followed by an interview. The Commission released a list of candidates who were declared to be successful in the written examination on the basis of which candidates were to be called for an interview. The Commission called three times the number of candidates for interview from each category applying what is described as a ‘3x formula’. The petitioners who filed writ proceedings before the learned Single Judge were candidates belonging to the OBC category. Their grievance was that though the last candidate from the unreserved category had secured lower marks, none of the petitioners were called for the interview.

3. In the affidavit which has been filed on behalf of the Commission, it has been stated that results of successful candidates were declared for the written test category-wise. In other words, candidates belonging to the OBC category were confined only against the merit list of the OBC category. Consequently, an OBC candidate who may have been meritorious enough to be within the short-list for the unreserved posts was not included in the short-list on the ground that such a candidate could only compete for a post in the category to which the candidate belongs. Hence, the Commission stated that in the process of short-listing, candidates were short-listed for interview category-wise. This is clear from the following averments contained in paragraph 8 of the affidavit filed by the Secretary to the Commission in the special appeal which reads as follows:

“That it is stated that a counter-affidavit on behalf of the appellants was filed in the aforesaid writ petition. It was specifically contended on behalf of the appellants in the said counter-affidavit that the candidates had applied for selection on the post of TG-II category-wise and as per law, the results of the successful candidates in the written test were also declared category-wise and since the petitioners-Respondents were of the OBC category and therefore, they can set up their claims under their own category and they have no right under the law to over-lap under the different category for which they have never applied. It is, thus, a specific stand was taken on behalf of the appellants that the successful candidates were invited for interview in the ratio of 3 times of the existing vacancy of their own category in which they had applied for and since the petitioners have secured less marks and therefore, they were out of the zone of consideration in their own category as the candidates securing higher marks in their own category i.e. OBC were available. The petitioners cannot contend for encroachment of posts which do not fall under their own reserved category.”

4. The learned Single Judge in the course of the judgement indicated the consequence of the procedure of shortlisting which was followed by the Commission, in the following observations:

“...The petitioners have been left out of the field of consideration for being called in the interview only because there were a large number of candidates in the OBC category who had secured higher marks than the petitioners and by applying the three times formula it has resulted in the ouster of the petitioners from the field of consideration for being called for interview. On the contrary the petitioners having secured higher marks in the written test than the last unres