The court emphasized that all similarly situated candidates must be treated alike, directing the appointment of the applicant based on Supreme Court guidelines.

ORDER

Per Hon’ble Mr. Rajinder Singh Dogra, J.M.

The fact of the case is that respondent No.3 issued an advertisement notice dated 1.7.1997 inviting applications for posts of Technician Grade III in the Power Development Department (in short PDD) minimum qualification being Matric with ITI Diploma in Electric. The advertisement further restricted the candidates’ eligibility in respect of the said post on district wise basis in as much as the advertisement contained a note to the effect that no application shall be entertained in district cadre from the candidates belonging to other districts or who possessed ambiguous permanent residence certificates. The applicant being fully eligible applied for the post of Technician Grade III for the district cadre post in the then Jammu district. After selection the respondent No.3 (SSB) issued a selection list wherein the name of the applicant was missing. SSB made the selection district wise instead of State wise and several writ petitions were filed before the Hon’ble High Court, the lead case being SWP 879/1998 challenging the selection list. In a common judgment Learned Single Bench directed that while making initial appointment, the entire State is to be treated as Single Unit and that the applicants be appointed against the available vacancies in different districts and the selection already made shall not be disturbed. Based on this judgment several writ petitions were filed by other aggrieved candidates. The present applicant also filed SWP 2223/1999 which was decided on the same analogy. Respondent No.3 filed an LPA against the said judgment and the same was disposed of by the Learned Division Bench vide order dated 16.11.2002 whereunder the basic judgment of the Learned Single Bench was upheld with slight modification by holding that the part of the judgment which directed the respondents to appoint the applicants therein against the available vacancies was set aside but direction was given to the State to redraw the merit list of the candidates according to their merit state wise. No LPA was however, preferred in SWO No.2223/1999 which was filed by the present applicant. Thereafter the matter was agitated by the respondents before the Hon’ble Supreme Court in SLP (Civil) No. 7612/2003and in the SLPs filed before the Hon’ble Supreme Court where 98 candidates were arrayed as respondents. During the pendency of the SLPs certain candidates whose writ petitions were decided separately by the Hon’ble High Court moved applications before the Hon’ble Supreme Court for impleadment as party respondents. Vide order dated 26.10.2005 the Hon’ble Supreme Court directed that if any posts of Technician Grade III are remaining unfilled out of the notified vacancies of 1997, these vacancies shall be filled by candidates out of the applicant who have secured more marks than the cut off marks in 1997 selections and they be appointed by the State according to the marks secured in selection within a period of four months. All pending applications for impleadment were dismissed. Respondent No.3 interpreted the judgment wrongly by saying that since pending applications for impleadment were dismissed, the order applies only to those candidates who were arrayed by the State in the SLP and to those whose applications for impleadment as party respondents were allowed by the Apex Court.

The respondents in order to give effect to Supreme Court judgment issued a notification in newspapers advising “the petitioners to whom the order passed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court is applicable” to furnish their original certificates of Academic/Technical qualifications up to 15.12.2005. The applicant also submitted his original certificates of Academic/ Technical qualification against proper receipt as he was entitled for consideration on the analogy of the directions passed in SWP 879/1998. The name of the applicant did not figure in the list of selected candidates inspite of the fact that the applicant squarely falls wi