The court ruled that without statutory provisions for an additional list, the selection body cannot prepare one, reaffirming that placement in a select list does not guarantee appointment.

JUDGMENT :

Ajit Kumar, J.

1. Heard Sri Mujib Ahmad Siddiqui, learned counsel for the petitioner, Sri A.K. Maurya, learned counsel for the respondents and Sri Siddharth Singhal, learned counsel for the respondent-Commission and learned Standing Counsel for the State.

2. Petitioners who were applicants for the post advertised by the U.P. Subordinate Services Selection Commission, Lucknow (hereinafter referred to as Commission) vide advertisement no.05 Examination/2019, have approached this Court for a relief in the nature of writ of mandamus to command the respondent-Commission to prepare and declare an additional list to the list of recommendation for appointment on the post of Forest Guard pursuant to the examination held under the advertisement.

3. The submission advanced by learned counsel for the petitioner is that in the event candidates already selected may not turn up to join, there should be an additional list of the candidates next in order of merit to the selected and recommended candidates, to be adjusted and accommodated instead of leaving the vacancies unfilled and carrying it forward to the next selection which would result in a detailed exercise in terms of determination of vacancies and recommendation by the department to the Commission and then re-advertising the vacancies.

4. According to Mr. Siddiqui, for such a long exercise of sending requisition to the commission the result would be that several aspirants will get over aged. He has placed before the Court, firstly a judgment of a Coordinate Bench of the Court in the matter of Vatsyayan Shukla and another v. State of U.P. and others in Writ (A) No. 7494 of 2019 decided on 30.07.2019 in which according to Mr. Siddiqui similar issue had come up. The relevant portion relied upon by learned counsel for the petitioner is reproduced hereunder:

"So far as the plea of waiting list is concerned, the same will have no applicability in a case of the present nature where the selected candidates have not joined. In case vacancies remain available, the authorities would be expected to fill up the posts from the candidates next in the order of merit, and their claim cannot be rejected only on the ground that a waiting list has not bee prepared. The observation of the Apex Court in the case of State of U.P. and another Vs. Rajiv Kumar Srivastava and others, would be clearly applicable in the facts of the present case."

5. He has also placed reliance upon authority of Supreme Court in the matter of Constitution Bench judgment of Supreme Court in the case of Tej Prakash Pathak v. Rajasthan High Court , 2024 SCC Online SC 3184.

6. Meeting the above submissions, Sri Akhilesh Kumar Maurya, learned Advocate holding brief of Sri Siddharth Singhal, learned counsel for the respondent has argued that all these candidates could not qualify further after the document verification and hence, were not placed in the select list. It is, therefore, argued that non-selected candidate does not have any right to take the plea of preparation of additional list. It is argued that the pleadings in the writ petition are absolutely silent as to what fact has merited the claim of the petitioner for an additional select list. He has further argued that the recruitment rules as applicable to the forest department do not provide for preparation of additional select list and rules have to be strictly adhered to by the Commission. He submits that the Commission is only a selecting and recommending body for the purposes of appointment and, therefore, it cannot travel beyond the recruitment rules either in holding the selection process or in preparation of select list. He has further submitted that the recomme