Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Jan 4: A Division Bench of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh High Court comprising Chief Justice N Kotiswar Singh and Justice Rajesh Sekhri has held that under our service jurisprudence, there is no concept of year wise vacancy unlike in the case of posts to be filled up by promotion.
In case of direct recruitment, no one has a vested right to claim to be considered against any particular advertised post till the recruitment process is undertaken and completed. If the recruitment process for the advertised posts is not initiated or completed for any reason and if new posts are further advertised, all the persons who would have become eligible by then will be also entitled to apply for the posts advertised earlier also, the DB said.
“In other words, no direct recruitment posts could be kept reserved for a particular group of candidates. It must be made open to all those persons who become eligible when the posts are advertised. Thus, all the candidates who had applied under the advertisement issued in 2008 and were eligible for the posts of Naib Tehsildar would be entitled to be considered for all the posts advertised earlier in 2002 and 2005 as these posts could not have been reserved only for those who had applied in 2002 or 2005 as the case may be”, the DB further said.
DB observed, “the position is different when it is related to appointment by promotion when the concept of year wise vacancy comes into play. Under the promotional scheme, only those who become eligible when the vacancy under the promotion quota arises can be considered and if for any reason the selection for the promotion could not be held, it can be held in a subsequent year, but it will be confined to those candidates who were eligible during that period when the vacancy arose and not those who become eligible after the vacancy had arisen”.
“Thus, the right of eligible candidates for consideration against vacancies occurring in a particular year or period is confined to the posts to be filled up by promotion and not against direct recruitment quota unless, the rules specifically provide or the advertisements make it very clear and the recruitment process conducted accordingly”, the DB added.
“In the present case, there is no mention in the relevant service rules that vacancies occurring in a particular year against direct recruitment quota have to be filled up from amongst the eligible candidates of that period or advertisement. Further, it was not mentioned in the advertisements that the appointments will be made advertisement wise. It has been also noted that there was only one written test and one interview process. There were no separate written tests and separate interviews for these different categories of candidates as per advertisements issued in 2002, 2005 and 2008. The interview was conducted as if all the posts were advertised together and as per records, all the posts were clubbed together”, the DB observed.
The DB held that the seniority list prepared on the basis of advertisement wise vacancy in terms of the advertisements issued in 2002, 2005 and 2008 is not only impermissible under law but also violative of the provisions of Rule 24 of the Jammu and Kashmir Civil Services (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules, 1956 for the purpose of determining seniority and to that extent the impugned seniority list dated 08.10.2013 prepared is not valid and accordingly, the same is quashed and set aside as far as the present appellants and private respondents are concerned, and not for others, as they have not questioned the final seniority list before us and we do not wish to disturb the position at this stage except for the appellants and the private respondents.
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