1. The appellant-State of Gujarat is aggrieved by the order dated 09th May, 2011, passed by the High Court of Gujarat at Ahmedabad whereunder the intra court appeals1 were allowed and the order dated 14th May, 2008, passed by the learned Single Judge in Special Civil Applications2 was set aside. Resultantly, the appellant- State was directed to consider the caste certificate of the respondents in SEBC3 category and on accepting the same, follow the procedure of selection, as adopted in the case of other similarly placed candidates.

2. As per the records, the brief facts of the case reveal that both the respondents who are sight less, had in response to an advertisement dated 19th April, 2007 issued by the appellant-State for recruitment to the post of Vidya Sahayak (Music), submitted their applications wherein they had stated that they belonged to the SEBC category.

However, the said application forms were not accompanied by any caste certificate.

1 Letters Patent Appeal Nos.612 and 613 of 2008 2 Special Civil Applications No.7388-7389 of 2008 3 Socially and Economically Backward Class Digitally signed by GEETA AHUJA Date: 2023.10.31 17:43:01 IST Reason:

Signature Not Verified In view of the absence of the certificates submitted by the respondents, the appellant- State treated both the respondents as candidates in the open general category.

Resultantly, they could not succeed in being selected for the subject post.

3. The respondents sought parity with other candidates who had applied for the same post and had not submitted their SEBC certificates along with their applications and claimed that despite that the appellant had accepted their certificate at the stage of conducting the interviews on 02nd May, 2008. A specific example was given of a candidate by the name of Bakul Dharangi belonging to the ‘Scheduled Tribe’ category who had also not submitted his caste certificate but was permitted to produce the same at the time of interview. This fact was admitted by the appellants in the affidavit filed before the High Court. Claiming that the respondents had been discriminated against by the appellants-State Government by denying them an opportunity to produce their caste certificate at a later stage, though the respondents approached the High Court vide judgement of the learned Single Judge dated 14th May, 2008, the petitions filed by the respondents were dismissed with an observation that the respondents had failed to annex their relevant certificates along with their applications and, therefore, could not later on raise a grievance that they were treated in the open general category instead of the SEBC category. Aggrieved by the said order, the respondents filed intra court appeals which have been allowed by the impugned judgement.

4. Learned counsel for the appellants-State Government submits that the impugned judgment is not sustainable as the Division Bench of the High Court has wrongly endorsed the policy of submitting caste certificates after the last date of submitting the forms in response to the advertisement and that strict compliance of the instructions issued in the advertisement ought to have been made by the respondents. Having failed to comply with the terms and conditions of attachment of a caste certificate at the correct stage, the respondents cannot be permitted to submit the said documents subsequently and claim that they be accommodated in the SEBC category, for which 12 posts had been reserved.

5. On a pointed query addressed by this Court to learned counsel for the appellants-State Government as to whether some candidates who had applied in response to the advertisement in question had submitted their caste certificates at the stage of participating in the interview, learned counsel concedes the said position.

She submits that if the Court is inclined to grant any relief to the respondents, then it be clarified that they would only be entitled to a consolidated salary, as specified in th