Editorial:

An exemplary judgment upholding Social Justice

Alandmark judgment delivered by a Division Bench of Madras High Court comprising Justices Elipe Dharma Rao and S.R. Singaravelu corrected un injustice that the Union Public Service Commission has been perpetrating on the Schedule Castes Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes for quite a long time.
The historic ruling struck down rule 16(2), an amended provision of the Examination Rules issued by the UPSC for the Civil Services Examination 2005, adjusting candidates belonging to SC, ST or OBC recommended against unreserved vacancies to the reserved vacancies. Declaring Rule 16(2) “unconstitutional, null and void,” the court has quashed the merit lists prepared by the Centre and the UPSC.
The division Bench said the impugned rule ran counter to the benefit of SC, ST, OBC candidates. The Rule 16(2) stated that while making service allocation, the candidates belonging to SC, ST or OBC recommended against unreserved vacancies may be adjusted against reserved vacancies by the government, if by this process, they get a service of higher choice in the order of their preference.
The Bench directed the centre and the UPSC to proceed with the selection from the stage of announcement of results for all the 457 posts in 21 services including IAS and IPS, notified in December 2004, and re-work the allocation by treating the reserved candidates who were selected on their own merit without availing themselves of the relaxed standards as unreserved candidates. They should fill the posts of reserved category with candidates who availed themselves of the relaxed standards, after preparing the merit list for each category by following the judgments of the Supreme Court in the R.K. Sabharwal’s case and Satya Prakash’s case.
In the common order, the Division Bench said the Supreme Court had held that a reserved category candidate getting selected on his own merit should be considered only as an unreserved candidate and not as a reserved category candidate. However, subsequent to the judgment, the impugned amended rule came into effect. By resorting to Rule 16(2), the official respondents, ie Union Government and the UPSC, had deprived 31 OBCs and one SC candidate from getting their postings. It was seen that such vacancies created by the meritorious reserved candidates were then filled with other unreserved candidates. The negative effect of the impugned rule on the reserved category candidates, who availed themselves of the relaxed standards, had not been taken care of by the official respondents.
Originally, the UPSC had issued a notification in December 2004 to fill 457 posts in 21 different cadres. It published a list of 425 candidates who were successful in the main examination in the first phase and remaining 32 in the second phase along with a consolidated reserve list of 64 candidates. Thirty-one OBC candidates and one SC candidate, whose names were in the merit list, did not choose to get the posting as per the unreserved category. They chose to avail themselves of the higher services under the reserved quota (an alternate opened to them by the amended provision of Rule 16(2) of the Examination rules for Civil Service Examination - CSE).
Two selected candidates, R. Arulanandan and Ramesh Ram, filed petition before the Central Administrative Tribunal - CAT, seeking to declare Rule 16(2) as unconstitutional and a direction to the respondents to make allocation to various services on the basis of the civil services examinations 2005 by treating the 31 OBC candidates selected on merit, as general category candidates.
The tribunal disposed of the petitions with certain directions. There upon, the aggrieved candidates filed the present writ petitions in the Madras High Court against the Centre and the UPSC.
The Bench set aside the Tribunal’s order and directed the centre and the UPSC to re-work the allocation. They should fill the posts of reserved category with the candidates who availed themselves of the relaxed standards. Considering the fact that there was a considerable delay in making the selection, the Court directed the official respondents to complete the entire exercise within 12 weeks.
This is an exemplary judgment in the light of Social Justice which lends substance to the rights of the less privileged and makes real the concept of equal opportunities. Constitutional provisions provide 22.5 per cent reservation to the SC and STs, and 27 percent to the OBCs. There is no prohibition for these committees to get selected under the general category through open competition. They together constitute more than 80 per cent of the population of our country, and to confine their opportunities within the per centage of reserved quota amounts to gross violation of justice guaranteed by the constitution. We hope that this laudable and perceptive judicial interpretation will be a decisive prelude to foil the overt and covert attempts of the bureaucracy to circumscribe benefits of reservation mean for the disadvantaged sections of our people. Everyone working for the upliftment of the deprived classes feel grateful to the judges for delivering this timely judgment.