The main legal point established in the judgment is that candidates with both educational and technical qualifications should be considered eligible for selection to reserved category posts, and the recruitment process should be fair and transparent, without discrimination or bias.

JUDGMENT

1. Both the writ petitions are tied up together for disposal by a common judgment inasmuch as the facts and question of law involved in both the petitions are identical and the material documents relied on by both side except that of the personal testimonials of the petitioners are also same and hence the cases were taken up together for hearing and disposal and WP(C) 200 of 2009 has been taken up as the lead case and the material documents submitted by the parties referred from that case record.

2. The only question fell for consideration in these writ petitions is whether the writ petitioners have been discriminated and/or denied appointment to the post of Wireless Operator(Assistant Sub-Inspector, for short, ASI) wrongly and arbitrarily and whether the recruitment board failed to correctly construe the provisions of Rule 7 of the recruitment rules.

3. Heard learned counsel, Mr. D.K. Biswas for the petitioner of WP(C) No. 200 of 2009 and learned senior counsel, Mr. K.N. Bhattacharji for the petitioner of WP(C) No. 201 of 2009. Also heard learned G.A. for respondent Nos. 1 to 4 in both the cases and learned counsel, Mr. B. Banerji for respondent Nos. 5 of WP(C) No. 200 of 2009. Other private respondents did not participate in the proceedings.

4. Pursuant to an advertisement made by respondent No. 3, the Chairman of the recruitment board, for direct recruitment to the post of Wireless Operator(ASI), Suman Das, the petitioner of WP(C) No. 200 of 2009, applied for the post as a Scheduled Caste(for short, S.C.) candidate and Milan Gerard Debbarma and Partha Kalai, both the petitioners of WP(C) No. 201 of 2009 also applied for the post as Scheduled Tribe(for short, S.T.) candidates. So far as the counter affidavit of the official respondents is concerned, the advertisement was published in various newspapers, namely the Telegraph, Dainik Sambad, Daily Desher Katha, Syandan Patrika, Tripura Darpan, etc. and also in the electronic media. The number of post was 70(seventy) in total and out of it 39(thirty nine) posts were reserved for S.T. category, 12(twelve) posts were reserved for S.C. category and 19 posts were for Un-Reserved(for short, U.R.) category. Educational and technical qualification required for recruitment to the post was given in item No. V of the advertisement, which is pari materia to Rule 7 of the Recruitment Rules.

5. The recruitment board consisted of 5(five) members to which respondent No. 3 was the Chairman(annexure-R/1 to the counter affidavit of the official respondents). The selection process was conducted by written test for 50 marks, practical test for 25 marks and interview for 25 marks. The recruitment board decided that the pass mark for the written test and practical test should be 40% in case of reserved category candidates and 50% in case of U.R. category candidates. At first written test and practical test were taken and thereafter interview was conducted.

6. It is the case of the petitioners that they have both educational and technical qualification as prescribed in the rules and embodied in the advertisement and they got requisite marks both in the written and practical test and thereafter they were called in interview also and they appeared in the interview and secured more than 40 percent of the cutoff marks meant for reserved category candidates and their names also appeared in the select list prepared by the respondents for "educationally and technically qualified candidates" whereas, they were not given appointment and were wrongly discriminated.

7. The stand of the official respondents is that the educational and other qualifications required for direct recruitment as prescribed in Rule 7(a) is meant for the general category candidates which includes S.C. and S.T. category candidates also who qualify on merit within the vacancy meant for U.R. category candidates. Though 19(nineteen) posts were only un-reserved posts, the respondents ultimately appointed 23(twenty three) candid