TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
1991 (2) TMI 434
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.... Rules) specified the posts in order of preference in their respective applications. The result of those who were declared qualified was published in the daily Tribune dated September 21, 1973. Out of the 71 candidates declared successful Shri V.M. Bansal, the appellant in Civil Appeal No. 833 of 1977 was declared successful for a post in the Punjab Civil Service and Shri Jaswant Singh Nerwal, the appellant in Civil Appeal No. 334 of 1978 for the post of Tehsildar in the Allied services. Some of the unsuccessful candidates challenged this selection in its entirety on various grounds before the High Court through Civil Writ Petition No. 1722 of 1974. On the other hand challenge in Civil Writ Petition No. 1860 of 1975 was made by Nerwal against Bansal for the latter having been allowed in the meantime substituted preference for the posts to the ones given in the first instance in his application, and which led to his becoming a Punjab Civil Services Officer and Nerwal to be a Tehsildar, in the Allied services and had the substitution not been allowed the position would have been that Nerwal would have been in the P.C.S. and Bansal an Excise & Taxation Officer. The challenge thus was ....
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....tively to have influenced the selection and the possible ouster of a possibly successful candidate. Kraipak's case was one where one of the persons, who sat as a member of the selection board, was himself, one of the persons to be considered for selection. He participated in the deliberations of the selection board when the claims of his rivals were considered. He participated in the decisions relating to the preference in seniority. He participated at every stage in the deliberations of the selection board where there was conflict between his interest and duty. In such set of facts this Court unhesitatingly came to the conclusion that there was a reasonable likelihood of bias and therefore the principles of natural justice had got violated. But this Court in Javid Rasool Bhat and Ors. v. State of Jammu & Kashmir and Ors [1984]2SCR582 did not vitiate the selection of a candidate to admission in a medical college on the ground of presence in the selection board of the father of one of the candidates. In this case, the Principal of Medical College, Srinagar whose daughter was a candidate for admission to the Medical College informed the Selection Committee at the very outset abou....
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....s happen that no other member is available to take the place of such member and the functioning of the Public Service Commission may be affected. When two or more members of a Public Service Commission are holding a viva voce examination they are functioning not as individuals but as the Public Service Commission. Of course, we must make it clear that when a close relative of a member of a Public Service Commission is appearing for interview, such member must withdraw from participation in the interview of that candidate and must not take part in any discussion in regard to the merits of that candidate and even the marks or credits given to that candidate should not be disclosed to him. 6. It was the admitted case before the High Court that Bansal's father did participate in the deliberations of the Commission when the viva voce test of other candidates appearing before the Commission had been taken and he had accordingly awarded marks to the candidates otherwise competing with his own son. The High Court has still deduced that inspire of the afore-suggested bias the candidates who got selected against the posts (except his son) got their due un-biased and therefore their se....
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....ent and participating in the interview. We may not be taken to be commending such a system of division of marks out of the allocated marks for the viva voce test but it seems this is the practice in which they are actually worked out. Similarly the provision of 200 marks for viva voce test cannot meet our approval because of the percentage now authoritatively fixed in Ashok Kumar Yadav's case (supra). On these particulars and for these reasons no single member can possibly usurp to himself the total functioning of the commission and jealous as human nature is, no other member can be expected to have abdicated his powers to another, at that level, and to oblige another. These circumstances do not give rise to the likelihood of Bansal's father espousing the cause of his son to the other four members of the commission and monitor the performance of 540 candidates to be interviewed, the results of written examination of which, he was not alleged to be aware beforehand. In these circumstances, we find it difficult to uphold the view of the High Court requiring Bansal to be interviewed again so as to rub against the unsuccessful candidates and to suffer the consequence. 8. On ....