The Court ruled that horizontal reservations must be applied independently, and the State's practice of clubbing with vertical reservations is legally unsound.

JUDGMENT :

SAURABH SHYAM SHAMSHERY, J.

1. In the present case there are two sets of petitioners, who have participated in a recruitment for the selection of Sub Inspector (Civil Police)/Platoon Commander PAC/FSSO Fire Service and remained unsuccessful, whereas selected candidates, after completing their training, are posted at their respective places. None of the likely affected selected candidates was made party respondent in present bunch of writ petitions, despite pending for last 3 years.

2. First set of petitioners are woman, who belongs to Economical Weaker Section and are claiming complete and independent 20 percent horizontal women reservation (181 seats) under total EWS reservation i.e. 10 percent vertical reservation of entire EWS quota (902 seats) out of of total (9027 seats) advertised. Details of Writ Petitions of first set are as follows:-

“Writ A No. 7118/2022 (Neha Sharma and 53 others)

Writ A No. 10654/2022 (Anjali Singh and another)

Writ A No. 11002/2022 (Richa Singh)

Writ A No. 11279/2022 (Km. Himanshi Chaudhary) Writ A No. 18753/2022 (Sadhana Saraswat and another)”

3. The State has accepted that seats for woman horizontal reservation under Open Category (722) and seats from woman horizontal reservation under Economical Weaker Section Category (181) were clubbed together and in total 903 seats were allotted to woman and thus claimed that entire reservation of women in both said categories was satisfied.

4. During arguments respondent State was failed to show any provision, order or G.O. that instead of applying reservation for woman independently and separately under Open Category and EWS, they could club both reservations, which could lead a situation as in present case that only 34 women under EWS quota were benefited with horizontal reservation instead of 181 i.e. reserved seats, therefore, grievance of petitioners of first set has substance. Woman reservation in other categories was provided correctly. A chart provided by the State is mentioned herein after, which would make the position very explicit :-

Vacancy position of SI (Civil Police)/Platoon Commander PAC/FSSO Fire Service

Vacancy position of Sub Inspector (Civil Police)

5. In aforesaid circumstances S/Sri Alok Mishra and Durvesh Kumar, learned advocates for petitioners (first set) have placed reliance upon judgments of Supreme Court passed in the cases of Indra Sawhney and others vs. Union of India and others , AIR 1993 SC 477 , Rajesh Kumar Daria vs. Rajasthan Public Service Commission and others , (2007) 8 SCC 785 and Anil Kumar Gupta and others vs. State of U.P. and others , (1995) 5 SCC 173 .

6. Second set of petitioners are Ex-Service Men, belonging to Economical Weaker Section. According to them reservation in said category was also not correctly applied. The State has not taken any specific stand so far as present set of petitions is concerned. The details of writ petitions of this set are as follows :-

“Writ A No. 7119/2022 (Ravi Shankar Tripathi)

Writ A No. 7072/2022 (Vineet Kaushik)

Writ A No. 8243/2022 (Yuvraj Upadhyay)

Writ A No. 12550/2022 (Rajeew Mishra)”

7. The Court also takes note that if s