Service Law – Jharkhand Combined Civil Services Examination – Validity of appointments – Interpretation of r.16 and r.17 of Bihar Civil Services (Executive Branch) and Bihar Junior Civil Services (Recruitment) Rules, 1951 – High Court cancelled the appointment of appellants who had qualified the 6th combined Civil Service Examination, 2016 – Appellants-candidates in appeal before Supreme Court – Held: While reading clause (a) and (b) of r.16 conjointly, it states that clause (a) is general and precise for the candidates who are participating in the written examination whereas clause (b) refers to the candidates who belong to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes leaving the discretion of the Commission to fix qualifying marks for them but with restriction that shall not be higher than 35% - R.16 proviso relates to the stage for determining the suitability of the candidate, total marks obtained in the written examination has to be counted and not the marks obtained in any particular subject for preparing the list of candidates who qualify the written examination and this can be made further clear by taking note of r.17 – Clause 12(a) of advertisement in reference to the Preliminary Examination states that fifteen times candidates will be shortlisted for main examination and as per clause 12(b), the main examination will comprise of 06 papers, total marks of which would be 1050 and it would be mandatory for the candidate to appear in all the subjects/papers of Main Examination – However, for Paper-I, minimum 30 marks as qualifying marks has been prescribed and all the 6 papers are common and candidate has to appear in all the papers with the minimum qualifying marks for the respective category as per clause13 of the advertisement but whether it is the total marks obtained at the written examination or qualifying marks obtained in all the papers separately is not clear under the terms of advertisement – Reading clauses 12 and 13 of advertisement with r.16 of indicates ambiguity in advertisement – Both the Commission and High Court have different views which are equally possible views and either of the one could not be ruled out or outrightly negated – When one possible view has been acted upon by the Commission and candidates have been appointed and are working for almost 2 years by this time, it will be unjust for this Court to now permit the Government to take a U-Turn – Hence, the appointments of the candidates could not be cancelled.
Allowing the appeals, the Court
HELD: 1. Reading clause (a) and (b) of Rule 16 conjointly, states that clause (a) is general and precise for the candidates who are participating in the written examination whereas clause
(b) refers to the candidates who belong to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes leaving the discretion of the Commission to fix qualifying marks for Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes but with restriction that shall not be higher than 35% in Bihar Civil Services (Executive Branch). [Para 37][33-G-H; 34-A]
2. The proviso added thereto relates to the stage for determining the suitability of the candidate, total marks obtained in the written examination has to be counted and not the marks obtained in any particular subject for preparing the list of candidates who qualify the written examination and this can be made further clear by taking note of Rule 17 of the Rules which casts an obligation upon the Commission to collate the marks obtained by the candidate in the written examination and the Commission shall arrange for vivavoce the candidates who have qualified the written examination according to Rule 16(a) or 16(b), as the case may be, and at this stage the Commission keeps a discretion and in exceptional circumstances may admit a member from the Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes to the viva voce test, even if they have failed to qualify the minimum qualifying marks with the prior approval of the Government and this being the scheme of Rules, proviso to Rule 16 has to be read for both the clause (a) and (b) to Rule 16 and cannot be read in reference to clause (b) alone as held by the High Court under the impugned judgment. [Para 38][34-A-D]
3. If we examine clause 12(a) in reference to the preliminary examination, it may indicate that according to vacancies, fifteen times candidates will be shortlisted for main examination and as per clause 12(b), the main examination will comprise of 06 papers, total marks of which would be 1050 and it would be mandatory for the candidate to appear in all the subjects/papers of Main Examination. But for Paper-I, minimum 30 marks as qualifying marks has been prescribed and all the 6 papers are common and candidate has to appear in all the papers with the minimum qualifying marks for the respective category as indicated in clause
13 of the advertisement but whether it is the total marks obtained at the written examination or qualifying marks obtained in all the papers separately is not clear under the terms of advertisement. It is true that it can be construed in both ways. The main examination is comprising of 6 papers, total marks would be 1050 and candidate has to appear in all the papers of the main examination. This could be one construction that qualifying marks in paperI is 30% but in other subject papers, it may be 40% or as fixed for the respective category and whether it has to be aggregate or qualifying marks in each paper is indeed not clear and ambiguity is there in the conditions of advertisement, of which a detailed reference has been made. At this stage, we take assistance of Rule 16 of the scheme of Rules, 1951 read with the proviso which gives a different indication. [Para 40 and 41][34-FH; 35-A-C]
4. In the instant case, the view which has been adopted by the Commission and that has been considered and held by the High Court in the impugned judgment may be better circumscribed but both are equally possible views and either of the one could not be ruled out or outrightly negated. In the given situation, when one possible view has been acted upon by the Commission and pursuant to which the recommendations were made and after approval of the State Government, candidates have been appointed and are working for almost 2 years by this time, it will be unjust for this Court to now permit the Government to take a U-Turn in compliance of the impugned judgment, and nonsuit the candidates who are working for sufficiently long time. [Paras 43 and 44][36-B-E]
Joy Guria v. State of Jharkhand and Others [W.P.(S) No. 4188 of 2018]; N. Suresh Nathan and Another v. Union of India and Others (1992) 1 Supp SCC 584 : [1991] 2 Suppl. SCR 423 – referred to.
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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