The main legal point established in the judgment is that the selection based on interview alone is permissible, and there is no rule of thumb for the weightage of marks for interview, as it varies from service to service.

JUDGMENT :

MANOJ KUMAR TIWARI, J.

1. The judgment rendered by Co-ordinate Bench of this Court was set aside by Hon’ble Supreme Court and, upon remand of the matter, these Special Appeals are being taken up for hearing. Since the judgment dated 14.12.2015 rendered by learned Single Judge in WP (SS) No. 1889 of 2015 and WP (SS) No. 2389 of 2015 have been challenged in these Appeals, therefore, these Appeals are being heard and decided together.

2. Special Appeal Nos. 656 of 2015 and 657 of 2015 have been preferred by employer; while, Special Appeal No. 37 of 2022 has been filed by persons, who were appointed pursuant to selection in question and had joined as Class-IV employee in the Bank; but, their services were subsequently terminated, in view of the judgment rendered by Co-ordinate Bench of this Court.

3. Learned Single Judge had allowed both writ petitions and had quashed the advertisement dated 21.10.2014 issued by Almora District Co-operative Bank Ltd. whereby applications were invited for appointment against available vacancies on Class-IV post. The order passed by Registrar under Section 122 (3) of Uttarakhand Co-operative Societies Act, 2003, by which procedure for direct recruitment to Class-IV post was laid down, was also quashed on the ground that, selection based on interview alone is inherently bad, and against public policy as it gives unlimited subjective power to the Selection Committee.

4. Operative portion of the impugned judgment is reproduced below:

“12. In view of this Court, this process is not a fair procedure at all. Once the entire criteria for selection is interview then it would mean that the Selection Committee has unlimited subjective powers as there is no objective criteria by which they can evaluate a candidate in the present case. This procedure is inherently bad and against public policy and cannot be allowed to stand by this Court. Even assuming for the sake of argument that Mr. Lalit Prasad has already participated in the interview and since he has already participated in the process cannot be allowed to challenge the legality and illegality of the procedure, as he has participated and having failed to qualify, cannot challenge the process. All the same, the second petitioner (Manoj Kumar) has not participated in the interview at all. What is challenged before this Court is a process which is patently illegal and unfair? Moreover, in view of this Court, even Mr. Lalit Prasad though has participated in the selection process but it cannot be said that he has failed to qualify as the result of the selection process are not out as yet. He has definitely participated in the selection process but before the result could be announced, he has already challenged the selection process before this Court. In any case, since there is inherent flaw in the entire procedure itself and even if Mr. Lalit Prasad [petitioner in WP (SS) No. 1889 of 2015] cannot challenge the selection procedure, another petitioner [Mr. Manoj Kumar in WP (SS) No. 2389 of 2015] can very well do so. The writ petitions succeed and the advertisement dated 21.10.2014 and order dated 13.12.2013 passed by respondent No. 2 are hereby quashed.”

5. The judgment rendered by learned Single Judge is challenged mainly on two grounds, namely:

(a) As per law laid down by Hon’ble Supreme court there is no rule of thumb with regard to allotment of marks for interview and Hon’ble Supreme Court has held that sometimes, only interview is considered to be best method for selection to certain posts and the view to the contrary, taken in the impugned judgment, is unsustainable.

(b) Both the writ petitions which were allowed by impugned judgment were not maintainable, inasmuch as, petitioner in Writ Petition (S/S) No. 2389 of 2015 had not applied pursuant to the advertisement, thus, had no locus standi to challenge the selection process and petitioner in Writ Petition (S/S) No. 1889 of 2015 is estopped from challenging the criteria of selection, after applying pur