Order dismissing a writ petition by an 10th ranker (UR category, Visakhapatnam zone) challenging the appointment of an 11th ranker. The court held the appointment was valid as the reserved vacancy was earmarked for local candidates in Kadapa zone, to which the petitioner did not belong.
This page shows the compact analysis of this judgement. The full analysis — procedural history, issue-by-issue holdings with ratio and obiter, advocates, and paragraph-level evidence for every claim — is being added to the record in batches and will appear here when this judgement has been through it.
THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE NOOTY RAMAMOHANA RAO
WRIT PETITION No. 24792 of 2012
O R D E R :
This Writ Petition is preferred by an open category candidate, who has secured 10th rank, but however, could not end up in getting appointed. He therefore, sought for a declaration that appointing the next ranker i.e. 11th meritorious candidate ignoring his claims as unconstitutional and bad in law.
Andhra Pradesh Transmission Corporation (henceforth, referred to as ‘the Corporation’) has issued Notification No. 74/11, on 15.12.2011, inviting applications to various categories of posts situate in various units. 225 vacancies are notified for the posts of Assistant Engineer (Electrical) and 25 vacancies for the posts of Assistant Engineer (Telecom). The petitioner in the instant case applied for Assistant Engineer (Telecom) and consequently, the scrutiny in this Writ Petition is confined to the selection carried out to these 25 posts of Assistant Engineers (Telecom). The Corporation is required to reserve certain posts to be filled in exclusively by the members belonging to Backward Classes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the fixed proportion and the remaining vacancies are to be treated as open competition vacancies. The respondent Corporation has also set apart 60% of the vacancies to be filled in with the local candidates and the remaining 40% of the vacancies to be filled in on un-reserved (UR) basis. Since no plea is raised with regard to this aspect of the matter, I have not examined the validity of such an arrangement. A written test was conducted on 29.01.2012 and based upon the performance of the candidates at the said test, their certificates have been examined and upon verification of the genuineness of the certificates produced by the meritorious candidates, the selections have been finalized. In the process, a candidate, who has secured 11th rank, by name Sri K. Manjunadha was appointed in the local unit of Kadapa of the Corporation and the candidates, who have secured Ranks 1 to 9 have also been appointed. The petitioner, in spite of securing 10th rank, has missed out. According to the petitioner, 11 out of 25 vacancies notified are to be filled in by open competition candidates ie. unreserved segment. Therefore, under no circumstances, the petitioner could have missed out his selection, he being the 10th ranker. Further, leaving out 10th ranker, a candidate, who secured 11th rank could not have been appointed. On that basis, this Writ Petition is instituted.
When notice was issued in the matter, the Chief General Manager (HRD & Training) of the Corporation has filed a detailed counter-affidavit. The non-selection of the writ petitioner is sought to be justified on several counts. I therefore, called for the overall
merit list to ascertain as to how the selected candidates came to be appointed against the entire 25 posts. The Chief General Manager (HRD & Training) of the Corporation is also present today in the Court and assisted Sri P. Lakshma Reddy, learned Standing Counsel for the respondents, in furnishing the details about each of the selected candidates.
As was noticed supra, fixed percentage of vacancies have to be filled in by candidates belonging to Backward Classes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. The remaining vacancies have to be filled in on open competition basis. Again, 30% of the vacancies are reserved to be filled in by candidates belonging to women category in the respective segments. The vacancies are filled up in each unit following a cyclic order by selecting suitable candidate against each roaster point. Therefore, for the purpose of easy grasp, the total vacancies, as are available in each of the six local units and as to the social segment to which they were allocated with specific reference to the point number in the running cycle adopted in each of such units, is brought before me and furnished. The entire information is tabulated herein by me, duly indicating as to how each one of those vacancies came to be filled in with the selected candidates reflecting their ranking
position instead of reflecting their names.
| S.NO. | ZONE | NO.OF | Ros | ter | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Posts | ||||||
| Open 4 | 0% (UR) | Local 60% | ||||
| Roaster Point |
Community | Roaster Point |
community |
|||
| 1 | VISAKHAPATNAM | 2 | 9 | OC(G) Rank 5 |
10 | BC-B-W Rank 29 |
| 2 | VIJAYAWADA | 3 | 9 | OC(G) Rank 3 |
10 | BC-B-W Rank 803 |
| 11 | OC(G) Rank 9 |
|||||
| 3 | KADAPA | 9 | 11 | OC(G) Rank 4 |
15 | OC(G) Rank 11 |
| 12 | OC(W) Rank 22 |
16 | SC(G) Rank 203 |
|||
| 13 | OC(G) Rank 6 |
17 | OC(W) Rank 113 |
|||
| 14 | BC(C) Rank 461 |
18 | BC-D-W Rank 1140 |
|||
| 19 | BC-E-W Rank 603 |
|||||
| 4 | WARANGAL | 3 | 9 | OC(G) Rank 1 |
10 | BC-B-W Rank 221 |
| 11 | OC(G) Rank 7 |
| 5 | HYDERABAD - METRO |
4 | 14 | BC( Ran |
C) k 666 |
16 | SC(G) Rank 161 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 | OC( Ran |
G) k 2 |
17 | OC(W) Rank 74 |
|||
| 6 | HYDERABAD-RURAL | 4 | 1 | OC( Ran |
W) k 23 |
3 | OC(G) Rank 8 |
| 2 | SC( Ran |
W) 158 |
4 | BC-A-W Rank 1642 |
|||
| A |
BSTR |
ACT OF NO |
TIFIED V |
ACAN |
CIES |
||
| Open | OC(G) | 6 | LOCAL | OC(G) | 4 | VJA,WG (Rural),K |
L,Hyd DP |
| OC(W) | 2 | KDP,HY | D(Metro) | ||||
| OC(W) | 2 | BC-A(W) | 1 | HYD(Ru | ral) | ||
| BC-C(G) | 2 | BC-B(W) | 3 | VSP,VJA, | WGL | ||
| SC(W) | 1 | BC-D(W) | 1 | KDP | |||
| BC-E(W) | 1 | KDP | |||||
| SC(G) | 2 | KDP,HY | D(Metro) | ||||
| Total | 11 | Total | 14 |
A perusal of the above tabular statement would clearly indicate that the 1st ranker is appointed against the lone vacancy available for an open competition candidate in the UR segment of Warangal. Similarly, the 2nd ranker came to be appointed against one vacancy available for open competition (general) in the UR segment of Hyderabad Metro. The 3rd ranker came to be appointed against open competition (general) UR vacancy available in Vijayawada unit. The 4th ranker was appointed against open competition (general) UR vacancy available at Kadapa. The 5th ranker was similarly appointed against the lone vacancy available for open competition (general) UR segment at Visakhapatnam unit. The 6th ranker was appointed against another vacancy available for open competition (general) UR segment in Kadapa unit. The 7th ranker was appointed against the open competition (general) vacancy available for local candidates of Warangal unit. The 8th ranker was appointed against open competition (general) vacancy available for local candidates of Hyderabad rural area. The 9th ranker was appointed similarly against open competition (general) vacancy for local candidates available at Vijayawada unit. Then, the 11th ranker by name Sri K. Manjunadha, who incidentally belongs to BC-B community, is a local candidate of Kadapa zone. He secured 78 marks in the written examination and consequently, secured 11th rank, whereas the petitioner secured 79 marks and 10th rank, but he is a local candidate of Visakhapatnam. Since Sri Manjunadha is to be treated as a local candidate of Kadapa unit and since one open competition (general) vacancy for local candidates for Kadapa unit is available, he came
to be appointed against the said vacancy. In normal circumstances, if 60% of the vacancies are not reserved for local candidates, it is the writ petitioner, who should have been appointed in preference to Sri K. Manjunadha, but since the Corporation has reserved 60% of the vacancies to be filled in by the local candidates and Sri Manjunadha happened to be a local candidate of Kadapa unit, he alone can be preferred, but not the petitioner against such vacancy meant for local candidate. Hence, the appointment of Sri Manjunadha, though he secured less marks than the writ petitioner and consequently the next rank than the petitioner, cannot be faulted.
The Writ Petition is therefore, dismissed. No costs. Consequently, the miscellaneous applications, if any shall stand dismissed.
---------------------------------------------(NOOTY RAMAMOHANA RAO, J)
4th September 2012
ksld
1 issue framed by the court
Whether a 10th ranker petitioner belonging to Unreserved category and VISAKHAPATNAM zone is entitled to appointment as an Engineer in a local District(KADAPA) reserved for local candidates when a lowe
Open category candidate (Rank 10)
Andhra Pradesh Transmission Corporation
Nooty Ramamohana Rao
As recorded by the court registry
Judgements on the same questions, provisions and authorities, from every court
