In a recent case of Sandrapati Vijaya Kumar vs The State of Andhra Pradesh, the Andhra Pradesh Public Service Commission had released a notification for the post of Hostel welfare officers, Grade II (Group-IV) for 57 posts in the Department of Social and Tribal Welfare in Krishna District of the State.
The petitioner namely Mr. S. Vijaya Kumar had applied for the post and had secured 46th rank with 203 marks. When he applied for the final verification process of his original documents, his name did not appear in the final selection list. A candidate from the Scheduled Caste (SC) category namely Mr. N. Chandra Mohan had secured 12th rank and the last selected candidate namely Mr. G. Pulla Reddy in the general or open category had secured 21st rank. The petitioner claimed that Mr. N. Chandra Mohan should not have been shifted to the general category or open competition category (OC) and rather should have been selected from the reserved category to which he belonged. The petitioner filed an application to the Andhra Pradesh Administrative Tribunal which was dismissed by the latter.
The High Court in its judgement referred to the case of Pradeep Singh Dehal vs State of Himachal Pradesh and others where the Supreme Court had held that every person comes under the purview of general category candidate and that the candidates belonging to Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST), Other Backward Classes (OBC) categories as well as any other category which is permitted by law will be given the benefit of reservation.
Another case referred by the High Court of Saurav Yadav and others vs. State of Uttar Pradesh and others stated that “the principle that candidates belonging to any of the vertical reservation categories are entitled to be selected in – Open or General Category is well settled. If such candidates belonging to reserved categories are entitled to be selected on the basis of their own merit, their selection cannot be counted against the quota reserved for the categories for vertical reservation to which they belong.”
The High Court thus gave a decision that the candidates belonging to the reserved category were entitled to be selected in the general/open category based on their own merit if they had secured marks which was more than the last of the candidates belonging to general category. And selection of such candidates was not to be counted against their reserved category quota and in addition the reserved category percentage that has been fixed for such reservation also needs to be proceeded and filed.
Written by: Divyani Newar, NEF Law College, 5th Semester, 3 Year LL.B., An intern under Legal Vidhiya.
