By the Court.—Heard Sri S.K. Varma, learned Senior Counsel assisted by Sri Santosh Kumar Mishra learned counsel for the appellant and Sri Deep Chand Singh learned counsel for the respondent Nos. 4 to 7 and learned Standing Counsel for the respondent nos 1 to 3.

2. The special appeal questions the correctness of the judgement of the learned Single Judge dated 7th December, 2018 whereby the petition filed by the appellant has been dismissed on the ground that admittedly the document quashing whereof has been sought was not part of the writ petition. For this learned the Single Judge has relied on his own judgement in Writ Petition No. 59231 of 2011 Nause Khan v. State of U.P. and others decided on 14.10.2011.

3. Sri Varma submits that there are two grounds on which he presses this appeal. Firstly, that the judgement which has been relied upon by the learned Single Judge does not reflect the correct position of law and he in turn has relied on the decision of a Division Bench in the case of S. Barrow v. State of U.P. and another, AIR 1958 All 154 paras 17 & 18 and contends that for the purpose of the exercise of writ of certiorari the records should be there before the Court and therefore even assuming for the sake of arguments that it was not appended alongwith the writ petition and had been appended alongwith the counter-affidavit, the learned Single Judge could not have dismissed the writ petition merely on this ground that the document was not part of the petition.

4. The second ground of challenge is that the learned Single Judge has proceeded on an erroneous assumption of fact inasmuch as the appellant challenged the select list by means of a prayer through an amendment application that was formally allowed on 7th December, 2012 and an amendment to that effect praying for certiorari had been incorporated in the writ petition. This fact has been completely omitted to be noticed by the learned Single Judge in spite of the same having been pointed out and in spite of the fact that it clearly existed in the pleadings on record.

5. We have heard Sri Deep Chand Singh, learned counsel for the contesting respondents and we find that the appeal deserves to succeed on both grounds. The issuance of a writ of certiorari is in the exercise of powers under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. A writ of certiorari is issued in order to put the records straight and to correct an error which is brought before the Court for its consideration in the exercise of jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. The exercise of powers therefore is not dependent upon annexing or not annexing the document but is dependent upon the existence of the record before the Court. The source of the record no doubt, if is being made a matter of challenge is the primary duty of the petitioner to place it on record, but if for some reason if the same has been brought on record by a contesting respondent and is available before the Court then the Court cannot ignore it merely on the ground that it did not form part of the paper book of the writ petition.

6. In the instant case, we find that a writ of certiorari has been sought for quashing the select list and an amendment was sought which was allowed on 7th December, 2012. The order passed by the learned Single Judge allowing the amendment application is extracted hereinunder :

“Heard learned counsel for the petitioner.

The amendment application is allowed.

Learned counsel for the petitioner may carry out necessary amendment within a week.

Newly amended petitioners may file reply to the amended writ petition within the same period.”

7. The document was very much on the record. In this view of the indisputable facts, we see no reason for the learned Single Judge to have refused to exercise judicial discretion in the exercise of powers under Article 226 of the Constitution of India when the document which was sought to be quashed was on record of the Court. The issue was considered in th