TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2008 (2) TMI 820
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....wn the selection procedure, the manner and method of selection is decided by the High Court, for every selection, as and when the vacancies are notified for selection. 3. The Government of Andhra Pradesh issued an advertisement dated 28.5.2004 inviting applications for appointment to the following ten posts of District & Sessions Judges (Grade II) in the A.P. State Higher Judicial Service by direct recruitment : Open category : 4 (1 Woman) Backward Class Group A : 1 (Woman) Backward Class Group B : 1 (Woman) Scheduled Caste : 2 (1 Woman) Scheduled Tribe : 1 The advertisement stated that a written examination followed by an interview will be held for selection to the above posts. The last date for receipt of applications was 15.6.2004. In all 1637 applications were received. On scrutiny 1516 applicants were eligible to take the written examination. 4. The Full Court of Andhra Pradesh High Court has authorized its Chief Justice to constitute Committees for the convenience of administration. The resolutions of the Full Court containing the guidelines relating to the functioning of the High Court have been compiled in the form of standing orders. SO 2.13 enumerates the mat....
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.... 81.6 02 1775 Smt. C.Sumalatha OC 61 19.4 80.4 03 1073 Smt. k. Manju Sree OC 68.5 10.6 79.1 04 1694 A.Hari Haranatha Sarma OC 64.5 14.4 78.9 05 1009 Smt. G.Anupama Chakravarthy BC(A) 51 8.6 59.6 06 1590 Smt. V.B.Nirmala Geethamba BC(B) 59.5 16.4 75.9 07 1059 M.Lakshman BC(D) 59 8.2 67.2 08 1176 BSV. Prakash Kumar SC 49 10 59 09 2336 Smt. Girija M. Priyadarshani SC 48 8.4 56.4 10 1220 N. Tukaramji ST 36.5 11.4 47.9 6. The Administrative committee considered the report, the merit list and list of recommended candidates proposed by the interview and by resolution dated 4.4.2006 approved the selection of the said ten candidates and directed the said select list be placed before the Full Court on 6.4.2006 for its consideration. 7. The Full Court considered the resolutions of the Administrative committee dated 30.11.2004 and 4.4.2006 and the record of selection. The Full C....
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....out of 25) Total marks (out of 100) 1 1775 Smt. C. Sumalatha OC 45.75 19.4 65.15 2 1117 Smt. G.Radharani OC 46.87 16 62.87 3 1694 A. Hari Haranadha Sarma OC 48.37 14.4 62.77 4 1590 Smt. V.B. Nirmala Geethamba (BC.B) OC (W) 44.62 16.4 61.02 5 1186 K. Sreenivas BC.D 38.25 12.6 50.85 6 1072 Smt.P. Manjula Devi BC.B(W) 33.75 13.2 46.95 7 1176 BSV. Prakash Kumar SC 36.75 10 46.75 8 1151 Smt. M.Renuka BC.A(W) 30 14 44 9 1220 N. Tukaramji ST 27.37 11.4 38.77 One vacancy relating to Scheduled Caste (Women) was left unfilled as there was no qualified candidate. 8. The said report and the selection list were considered by the Full court on 28.4.2006 and it was resolved to accept the names of the aforesaid nine candidates in the said list to the State Government for appointment. The second list contained the names of 5 out of 10 candida....
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....lant, the applicants in IA No.4 have contended to the contrary. SLP [C] No.[CC Nos.s7188-89/2007] 12. One E. Thirumala Devi whose name is found neither in the first list nor in the second list has filed this SLP. She was not a party in the writ petition before the High Court and has filed this SLP with an application seeking permission to file the SLP and for condoning the delay of 192 days in filing the SLP. She has contended that applying the criterion of minimum qualifying marks in the interview, without notifying the same to the candidates was violative of principles of natural justice. She has contended that the selection procedure was illegal and therefore the entire selection process should be scrpped and High court should be directed to hold fresh selections. Writ Petition [C] No.51/2007 13. The petitioner Girija M.Priyadarsini, (whose name was in the first list of selected candidates, under the category - Woman) has contended that minimum qualifying marks could not be applied for interviews. She further contended that even if resolution dated 30.11.2004 of the Administrative committee is construed as prescribing minimum marks for interview, such minimum marks would be ....
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.... was to be dealt with by the Administrative Committee and the decisions of the Administrative Committee were placed before the Full Court for its consideration and approval. The Administrative Committee at its meeting held on 30.11.2004 considered the method and manner of recruitment to be adopted in regard to the said recruitment and took the following three decisions : (i) that the written examination will be held on 30.1.2005 simultaneously at four centres; (ii) that the marks for the written examination shall be 75 and for oral examination 25; and (iii) that the minimum qualifying marks for OC/BC/SC/ST shall be as prescribed earlier. The first two decisions are self-contained and clear. In regard to the third decision, it becomes necessary to ascertain what was the minimum qualifying marks for OC/BC/SC/ST which had been prescribed earlier. There was no general prescription of guidelines or norms or criteria for holding the written examination and interview marks therefore. The procedure to be applied in regard to each recruitment was laid down separately by the Administrative Committee as and when the recruitment was done. When the Administrative Committee decided on 30.11.2004....
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....on on the subject. The subject for consideration was : Minimum qualifying marks in the written examination. The resolution stated that the minimum qualifying marks was 50% for open category, 40% for Backward Classes and 35% for Scheduled Tribes in the written examination. It did not prescribe any minimum for the interviews. Nor was it understood as prescribing any minimum marks for the interview. That the Administrative committee and Full Court intended and in face proceeded on the basis that there would be no minimum marks for the interview is evident from the fact that in regard to recruitment of 6 posts in 2001-2002, the minimum qualifying marks of 50%, 40% and 35% were applied only for the written examination and no minimum qualifying marks were applied in respect of interviews. We are informed that for the 2001-2002 selections, the procedure adopted was that all candidates who passed the written examination by securing the minimum marks were called for interview and the interview marks were added to the written examination marks for the purpose of preparing the merit list and for the purpose of selection. No minimum marks were applied for interview and no candidate was exclude....
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....ation, holding interviews and finalizing the list of candidates to be selected - was done by the Selection committee on the basis that there was no minimum marks for interview. To put it differently the game was played under the rule that there was no minimum marks for the interview. 20. Shri P. P. Rao, learned senior counsel appearing on behalf of the High Court submitted that the Resolution dated 21.2.2002 merely corrected a typographical error in the Resolution dated 24.7.2001, regarding minimum marks relating to written examination, and the last portion of the Resolution dated 24.7.2001, relating to interviews, (that is, the portion reading and the same ratio will apply for oral interview also) remained unaltered. According to him, when the Administrative Committee passed the Resolution dated 21.2.2002 in regard to the earlier selection and again passed the resolution dated 30.11.2004 in regard to the current selection, to conduct the examination with minimum qualifying marks as prescribed earlier, the intention was to have minimum marks both for written examination and the interview. We have already examined the resolutions dated 24.7.2001 and 21.2.2002 and held that the com....
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....rative Committee placed the merit lists and Selection List before Full Court, apparently objections were raised on two grounds. One related to the failure to provide the minimum of 50%, 40% and 35% marks for interviews, on the interpretation of resolution dated 30.11.2004 read with earlier resolutions dated 24.7.2001 and 21.2.2002. The second objection was that even though the Administrative Committee had resolved that the marks for written examination would be 75 and interview would be 25, at the time of tabulating the marks, the marks secured (out of 100 marks) in the written examination had been taken into account without scaling it down with reference to a maximum of 75 marks. The Full Court therefore, appointed a Sub-Committee of two Judges to examine the matter and prepare a fresh merit list and selection list. The Sub-Committee examined the matter and submitted a revised merit list by incorporating two changes. Firstly, while tabulating the marks, it scaled down the marks secured by the candidates in the written examination with reference to a maximum of 100 marks, in proportion to a maximum of 75 marks so that the final marks were with reference to a base of 75 marks for wr....
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....mum marks in the interview should be explicit and cannot be read by implication for the obvious reason that such deviation from the rules is likely to cause irreparable and irreversible harm. This Court held that as there was no power under the rules for the Selection Board to prescribed the additional qualification of securing minimum marks in the interview, the restriction was impermissible and had a direct impact on the merit list because the merit list was to be prepared according to the aggregate marks obtained by the candidates at written test and interview. This Court observed : Once an additional qualification of obtaining minimum marks at the viva voce test is adhered to, a candidate who may figure high up in the merit list was likely to be rejected on the ground that he has not obtaining minimum qualifying marks at viva voce test. To illustrate, a candidate who has obtained 400 marks at the written test and obtained 38 marks at the viva voce test, if considered on the aggregate of marks being 438 was likely to come within the zone of selection, but would be eliminated by the ASRB on the ground that he has not obtaining qualifying marks at viva voce test. This was impermi....
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....e examination because clause (6) of the Appendix itself has laid down the minimum marks which a candidate should obtain in the written papers or in the aggregate in order to qualify himself to become a member of the Judicial Service. The prescription of the minimum of 600 marks in the aggregate by the Selection Committee as an addition requirement which the candidate has to satisfy amounts to an amendment of what is prescribed by clause (6) of the Appendix\005\005.. We are of the view that the Selection Committee has no power to prescribe the minimum marks which a candidate should obtain in the aggregate different from the minimum already prescribed by the Rules in its Appendix. We are, therefore, of the view that the exclusion of the names of certain candidates, who had not secured 600 marks in the aggregate including marks obtained at the viva voce test from the list prepared under Rule 18 of the Rules is not legal. 27. In Durgacharan Misra (supra), this Court was considering the selection under the Orissa Service Rules which did not prescribe any minimum qualifying marks to be secured in viva voce for selection of Munsifs. The rules merely required that after the viva voce test....
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.... there will be no minimum marks for the interview. 30. It was submitted that Administrative Committee and Interview Committee were only delegates of the Full Court and the Full Court has the absolute power to determine or regulate the process of selection and it has also the power and authority to modify the decisions of the Administrative Committee. There can be no doubt about the proposition. The Administrative Committee being only a delegate of the Full Court, all decisions and resolutions of Administrative Committee are placed before the Full Court for its approval and the Full Court may approve, modify or reverse any decision of the Administrative Committee. For example when the resolution dated 30.11.2004 was passed it was open to the Full Court, before the process of selection began, to either specifically introduce a provision that there should be minimum marks for interviews, or prescribe a different ratio of marks instead of 75 for written examination and 25 for interview, or even delete the entire requirement of minimum marks even for the written examination. But that was not done. The Full Court allowed the Administrative Committee to determine the method and manner of....
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.... resolution dated 30.11.2004 in not excluding candidates who had not secured the minimum marks in the interview and that the Full Court had merely corrected the wrong action of the Administrative Committee by drawing up the revised merit list by applying marks for interview also. The decision of the Division Bench therefore, cannot be sustained. CONCLUSION 32. We therefore, find that the judgment of the Division Bench of the High Court has to be set aside with a direction to the AP High Court to redraw the merit list without applying any minimum marks for interview. The merit list will have to be prepared in regard to 83 candidates by adding the marks secured in written examination and the marks secured in the interview. Thereafter, separate lists have to be prepared for each reservation category and then the final selection of 10 candidates will have to be made. The scaling down of the written examination marks with reference to 75 instead of 100 is however, proper. 33. In view of our said decision, WP(C) No.51/2007 and WP(C) No.97/2007 do not survive for consideration. As a candidate is available under the category of SC (Woman) and she will be selected, the question of consi....