IMPORTANT POINT
The main legal point established is that the post of Deputy Finance Officer is to be filled by direct recruitment as per the 75% quota rule, and the petitioner, holding the post of Assistant Registrar, is not eligible for promotion to the post of Deputy Finance Officer.

JUDGMENT

[1] This writ petition has been filed by the petitioner seeking to quash the impugned advertisement bearing No.1 of 2019, dated 27.5.2019 in respect of the post of Deputy Finance Officer as the same violated the terms and conditions provided in the letter dated 2.11.2017 of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India and to consequently direct the respondent authorities to fill up the post of Deputy Finance Officer by promotion.

[2] The case of the petitioner is that she belongs to the Scheduled Tribe community and was appointed to the post of Assistant Registrar of Manipur University with effect from 1.4.2010 and since then, she has been serving to the said post without any adverse entries. The hierarchy for promotion from the post of Assistant Registrar is the post of Deputy Registrar and the Joint Registrar. According to the petitioner, the Ministry of Human Resource Development wrote a letter dated 2.11.2017 to the UGC regarding the scheme of revision of pay for the post of Registrar, Deputy Registrar, Assistant Registrar, Controller of Examination, Deputy Controller of Examination, Assistant Controller of Examination, Finance Officer, Deputy Finance Officer and the Assistant Finance Officer on the recommendation of the 7th Central Pay Commission.

[3] Further case of the petitioner is that there are four sanctioned post of Deputy Registrar and out of four, three posts have been filled up so far by direct recruitment and the remaining lone post meant for reserved quota for promotion among the eligible candidates. According to the petitioner, the post of Deputy Registrar, Deputy Controller of Examination and Deputy Finance Officer of Manipur University are similar post carrying the same scale of pay and they are inter-transferable. While so, by the impugned advertisement, applications were called for various Group-A posts of the University for appointment on open competition, including the post of Deputy Finance Officer. According to the petitioner, she is eligible for appointment to the said post, for which she applied by paying necessary fee and also by enclosing all related papers. She had also received call letter dated 09.1.2020 to appear personally at the interview to be held on 20.1.2020 in the office of the Vice-Chancellor.

[4] It is the further case of the petitioner that after the receipt of the call letter, she came to know the existence of the letter dated 2.11.2017 that the post of Deputy Finance Officer has to be reserved for promotion. On 13.1.2020, the petitioner and one Anisul Alam submitted a representation to the Vice-Chancellor requesting for cancellation of the interview for the post of Deputy Finance Officer, as the same post has to be reserved for promotion. Since no action was taken on the said representation, on 14.1.2020, the petitioner submitted a separate representation. However, the said representation was also not considered by the authority concerned and on coming to know that the authority concerned is taking steps to proceed further, the petitioner had issued a legal notice through her lawyer to the respondents 1 and 2. Though the respondents 1 and 2 received the legal notice, they have not sent any positive response to the petitioner. Since the petitioner’s rightful claim is affected, she has filed the present writ petition seeking to set aside the impugned advertisement and also sought direction on the respondent authorities to fill up the post of Deputy Finance Officer under reserved quota of promotion.

[5] Respondents 1 and 2 have filed affidavit-in-opposition stating that the hierarchy for promotion from the post of Assistant Registrar is the Deputy Registrar and therefore, the plea of the petitioner that the hierarchy for promotion of Assistant Registrar is the Deputy Finance Officer is false and baseless and not correct. It is stated that in the case of Deputy Finance Officer, there is only one sanctioned post in Manipur University and the present recruitment ex