Meghalaya High Court: H.S. Thangkhiew, J. until further orders put the notification dated 16-08-2019 for recruitment to the post of civil services on suspension.
Meghalaya Civil Services examinations (Preliminary) were conducted but d preliminary examination result was declared in contravention of the advertisement and plan of examination notified. Thereafter, a notice was issued stating that the Main examination for the Meghalaya CSE would be held in January 2020 and the dates for the same would be notified later. Since the result for prelims was not declared in accordance with the advertisement, the instant writ petition was filed.
Learned counsel P. Yobin on the behalf of applicant submitted that the scheme and subject of the examination was to compose of 2 compulsory papers, 200 marks each wherein the 1st paper will be considered for merit and the 2nd will be considered for qualifying only but Meghalaya Public service Commission considered both the papers for merit and to support this he quoted the scheme in Main Examination and pleaded that different procedures cannot be adopted for prelims and main papers.
Learned counsel K. Paul, for the respondent submitted that the writ petition is not maintainable because writ petitioners have participated themselves in the selection process, therefore, they cannot challenge it after being unsuccessful and relied upon the case Ramesh Chandra Shah v. Anil Joshi, (2013) 11 SCC 309. He further stated that the procedure for the calculation of cut-off marks were in accordance with the meeting dated 25-06-2019.
The Court opined that as per the scheme and format provided in Main Examination, the qualifying examination cannot be considered for ranking whereas in the prelim paper, GS paper though qualifying paper was considered for merit by the respondent. It was observed that though the process of prelim result declaration was projected by the counsel for respondent to be reasonable and in pursuance to plan of examination, a perusal of proceedings of meeting dated 25- 06-2018 wherein conduct of Preliminary examination was discussed revealed that the decision for result declaration was taken independently in the meeting without taking advertisement into consideration.
The Court, thus, until further orders put the impugned notification dated 16-08-1-2019 regarding general information for recruitment to the post of civil services on suspension. [Dahunshisha Rynjah v. Meghalaya Public Service Commission, 2019 SCC OnLine Megh 320, decided on 04-12-2019].