Non-speaking rejection orders in selection processes are arbitrary and violative of natural justice; must consider prior judgments equally.

ORDER 

Prasant Kumar, Member (Admn.) :- 

Initially this case was filed by the petitioner before the Hon’ble High Court of Jammu and Kashmir at Srinagar wherein it was registered as WP (C) No. 3444 of 2019. The Hon’ble High Court was pleased to issue notice on 02.12.2019 with liberty to the petitioner to serve the private respondents through publication in the two local dailies having wide circulation. Subsequently, in terms of Section 29 of the CAT Act, the case came to be transferred to Jammu/Srinagar Bench of the Tribunal vide Hon’ble High Court’s order dated 16.09.2020, wherein it was registered as TA

2. The petitioner has moved this Tribunal with this TA/WP(C) praying for grant of the following relief:-

“(i) Writ, order or direction in the nature of Certiorari for quashing impugned Government Order No. 180-Rev of 2016 dated 06.12.2016.

(ii) Writ, order or direction in the nature of Mandamus commanding the respondents to offer appointment to the petitioner has Naib Tehsildar in the Revenue Department and make it effective from the date it was offered to respondents 27 to 33.

(iii) Any other order, writ or direction which the Hon’ble Court may deem fit may also be passed.”

3. Case of the petitioner, as projected in the TA/WP(C), is as under:-

3.1 In pursuance of advertisement notice no. 09/2005 dated 14.12.2005 and no. 04/2008 dated 25.05.2008, issued by J&K Services Selection Board (for short ‘Board’), inviting applications from eligible candidates for posts of ‘Naib Tehsildars’ lying vacant in Revenue Department of State Government, the petitioner and the non-official respondents appeared in the written test and thereafter respondents 6 to 26 were appointed ignoring the rightful claim of the petitioner and private respondents 27 to 33.

3.2 As a good number of questions in question booklet were found to be wrong/vague or with more than one correct option or incorrect answers, number of petitions were filed challenging the written test as also the selection conducted by the Board. While Hamidullah Dar & Ors. (private respondents no. 27 to 33 herein) filed SWP No. 487/2009, the petitioner filed a separate writ petition bearing SWP No. 2295/2012. In both the petitions challenge was put to the genuineness of the written test conducted by the Board. The thrust in both the petitions was that the written test was a farce and it had adversely affected the merit position obtained by the candidates appearing in the test.

3.3 The Hon’ble High Court during the hearing of writ petition SWP No. 487/2009 appointed an Expert Committee to identify the questions and report whether any question was wrong/vague or with multiple correct answers and correct answers did not tally with Answer Key as claimed by the petitioners. The Committee of Experts reported to the Court that out of 120 questions on which the candidates were put to test, as many as 23 questions were having either wrong/vague options or multiple correct answers or the answers given in the answer key were not found to be correct. The Hon’ble High Court found that there has a great impact upon the result obtained by the Board on the basis of the Question Booklet put to the candidates for determining their merit. The Writ Petition SWP No. 487/2009 was decided on 31.12.2014 with findings/direction in para 25 of the judgment.

3.4 The separate petition filed by the instant petitioner bearing SWP No. 2295/2012 was decided on 12.02.2015 wherein the Hon’ble Court held that since the subject matter in writ petition SWP No. 487/2009 and the writ petition filed by the petitioner SWP No. 2295/2012 is same, the petition was accordingly disposed of and it was h