The allocation of place of posting to candidates must be done in a fair and transparent manner, and no person less meritorious than the person claiming posting at a particular place should be posted in preference to that person.

ORDER

Petitioner's contention is that petitioner was given appointment in the 25th Battalion SAF, Bhopal despite securing 63.09 marks whereas respondent No.4 Arun Verma under the same category having secured 63.01 marks has been given appointment in the Office of Superintendent of Police, Bhopal.

There is no specific reply to this, only reply is that respondent N.4 had filed earlier writ petition and in view of the orders of the Court, respondents have obliged the private respondent No.4. However, the fact of the matter is that once the scheme was to allocate a place as per the choice on the basis of the marks secured by a person, then in an excel-sheet respondents were required to prepare a list of all the qualified candidates with the marks secured by them and the place of posting, thereafter under the same category, nobody less meritorious than the person claiming posting at the said place as his first choice or second or third choice as the case may be, should have been posted in preference to that person whose first place of posting is at a particular place and when this aspect is taken into consideration posting of a person claim securing 63.09 marks in SAF and a less meritorious person in the District Police is clearly arbitrary and illegal.

It is not open to the respondents to play in the name of the orders of the High Court and not adhered to the procedure or adopt a fair and transparent procedure, therefore, the impugned order for the lack of adherence of the fair and transparent procedure is hereby quashed.

Respondents are directed that petitioner be given appointment in place of respondent No.4 in the District Police establishment as he had secured higher marks under the similar category than the respondent No.4. Let this exercise be completed within thirty days from today.

However, it is made clear that instead of making piecemeal exercises respondents are directed to redraw the whole process of the recruitment by preparing an appropriate excel-sheet giving weightage to the merit and the place of posting preference given by each candidate and after redrawing that list they should take up the exercise of reallocating the place of posting for all the candidates who were selected under the said selection, instead of giving piecemeal benefits to individuals approaching the Court so that hardship of each individual is mitigated and a fair, transparent procedure is put into place.

For this Director General of Police will take personal initiative and get the matter sorted out under his personal supervision within a period of sixty days from the date of communication of the order.

In above terms, petition is allowed and disposed of.

(VIVEK AGARWAL) JUDGE MTK