Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, May 24: In a petition seeking stay of KCS (Judicial) paper which is scheduled to be held on May 25, High Court today issued notice to the respondents with the direction that examination shall be subject to the result of the writ petition.
When the petition came up for hearing, Senior Advocate B S Salathia with Advocates Sachin Gupta and Prem Sadotra appearing for the petitioners, submitted that J&K Public Service Commission is holding an examination for recruitment to the post of Civil Judge (Junior Division/ Munsiffs) and in view of Rule 11 of Jammu and Kashmir Public Services Commission (Conduct of Examinations) Rules, 2005, the Commission is under an obligation to hold preliminary objective type test.
“Most of the petitioners have appeared in the previous year’s examination. However, their results have not been declared so far and in order to bring in transparency in the process of examination, the PSC must hold the preliminary examination taking into account the fact that number of applications received by it are unduly large”, they said.
On the other hand, Senior Advocate DC Raina appearing for the PSC submitted that Srinagar wing of High Court by order dated 25.05.2016 has held that the Public Service Commission is duty bound to follow the mandate contained in J&K Civil Services (Judicial) Recruitment Rules, 1967 and any other mode including that of conducting of screening test is not in consonance with 1967 Rules and would be violative of Article 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India.
“The advertisement notice was issued on 06.02.2017, last date of application of submission form was 06.03.2017 and the examination is scheduled to be held tomorrow as such the petitioners have approached the court belatedly for which no explanation has been offered”, he further said.
After considering the submissions of both the sides, Justice Alok Aradhe observed, ” prima facie the provisions of Rule 11 appear to be directory in nature. Even if all the candidates are allowed to appear in the main examination, it cannot be said that the Commission would not be able to select the best candidates”.
“The Commission is the examining body and it is for the Commission to decide the mode and method of conducting the examination. The examination is scheduled to be held tomorrow and all the arrangements for the examination in question including preparation of question papers, deployment of staff, fixation of centers etc have been made”, High Court said, adding “the indolent conduct of the petitioners disentitles them to any discretionary relief for postponement of the examination”.
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