The main legal point established in the judgment is that the application of horizontal reservation is contingent upon the availability of vacancies for the same, as per the specific recruitment rules and reservation policies.

Sujoy Paul, J.

1. The interesting conundrum in this petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution is whether the petitioner, a S.C. candidate is entitled to get vertical and horizontal reservations in view of her caste and on account of the fact that there exists a parallel reservation for women candidates.

2. In short, the relevant facts are that the petitioner pursuant to an advertisement (Annexure P/5) issued in May, 2015 by Director of Technical Education, Government of Madhya Pradesh submitted her on-line application for the post of Lecturer for various Autonomous/Government/Women Polytechnic Colleges in State of Madhya Pradesh. The petitioner submitted her candidature against the post of Lecturer in the stream of electronics and communication. In turn, petitioner was invited to appear in the interview on 27-8-2015. The names of candidates who were called for interview were shown in the official website of the department Annexure P/6.

3. After interviews were over, respondents posted the merit list as well as waiting list of Unreserved (UR), SC, ST and OBC categories in their official website on 18-9-2015 Annexure P/7. Petitioner's name finds place at Sr. No. 8 in the waiting list of S.C. category. Shri Gautam Prasad, learned counsel for the petitioner by taking this Court to Annexure P/7 contends that in the merit list of S.C. category which contains names of 14 candidates, only one female candidate finds place namely Ms. Kanti Prajapati. Thus, as a female S.C. category candidate, petitioner should be placed just below Ms. Kanti Prajapati.

4. Learned counsel for the petitioner contended that the merit list shows that in General, ST and OBC category, women candidates were placed in the merit list by giving her 30% reservation being female candidates. However, in S.C. category, the requirement of 30% reservation to women candidate was not followed. It is submitted that total 14 candidates' names find place in the merit list of S.C. category. If 30% reservation for women is applied to these 14 posts, four posts were required to be reserved for women candidates. The respondents have erred in not giving the benefit of 30% reservation to the women candidates. In support of his contention, Shri Prasad relied upon Rule 11(3)(b) of Madhya Pradesh Technical Education Polytechnic College (Teaching Cadre) (Recruitment) Rules, 2004 which provides that -

"Reservation for women candidates shall be applicable as per the provisions of the Madhya Pradesh Civil Services (Special Provision for appointment of Women) Rules, 1997."

He also placed reliance on Rule 3 of the Madhya Pradesh Civil Services (Special Provision for appointment of women) Rules, 1997 which reads as under:

"3. Reservation of post for women. - Notwithstanding anything contained in any service Rules, there shall be reserved thirty percent of all posts in the service under the State in favour of women at the stage of direct recruitment and the said reservation shall be horizontal and compartment wise.

Explanation - For the purpose of this rule "horizontal and compartment wise reservation" means reservation in each category, namely Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes and General. "

The relevant portion of aforesaid Rules are filed as Annexure P/8 and Annexure P/9, respectively.

5. In nutshell, Shri Prasad submits that respondents were required to apply horizontal reservation compartment wise. The said reservation was required to be given category wise namely for SC, ST, OBC and UR categories. It is submitted that the respondents have erred in not applying both the reservations namely vertical and horizontal in S.C. category. In support of this contention, he relied upon AIR 2007 SC 3127, Rajesh Kumar Daria v. Rajasthan Public Service Commission and others.

6. Per contra, Shri Pushpendra Yadav, learned Government Advocate opposed the relief. By taking this Court to the advertisement Annexure P/5, it is submitted that every autonomous college is an in