Rajesh Kumar & Ors. v. Ministry of Home Affairs & Anr.

1. The issue raised by the petitioners in all the aforesaid writ petitions emanate from the Recruitment Advertisement No.02/2018 dated 23.01.2018 for the post of Constable (Driver) published by respondent No.2. Vide the said advertisement, respondent No.2 initially advertised a total of 134 vacancies, up to 04.05.2017, out of which 68 seats were reserved for Scheduled Caste (SC) candidates, 47 seats for UR, 05 seats for ST and 14 seats for OBC. Para 3(a) of the said Advertisement No.02/2018 reads as under:- “3(a) Total vacancies include Backlog vacancies and may vary due to administrative reasons. ITBP reserves the right to make changes in sequence of the recruitment process after publication of this advertisement. ITBP also reserves the right to cancel or postpone the recruitment at any stage without assigning any reason.”

2. Vide order dated 30.09.2021, this court while issuing notice, directed the respondents to file counter affidavit.

3. Thereafter upon inclusion of normal wastage vacancies from 05.05.2017 to 31.01.2019 (68 vacancies), fresh vacancies resulting from the raising of two NDRF Bn (172 vacancies), the total vacancies were increased from 134 to 374 out of which 56 (15 %), as per the reservation policy, were kept reserved for SC category.

4. Upon review by the respondents, it was found that in Advertisement 02/2018, the total number of vacancies available up to 04.05.2017 were advertised, as per the break-up given below:-

5. The aforesaid vacancies were calculated as per the post based roster, as given in DoP&T OM No.36012/2/-Estt.(Res) dated 02/07/1997. While the recruitment process was underway, 68 vacancies occurred due to normal wastage i.e. promotion, deputation, retirement and discharge etc. up to 31.01.2019. Further, 172 fresh vacancies arose consequent upon the creation of 02 NDRF Units. Thus, a total of 240 vacancies were added to the previously advertised 134 vacancies. Therefore, 374 vacancies were available for consideration and candidates were shortlisted accordingly, for the next stage of recruitment process, i.e. Detailed Medical Examination.

6. At the time of allotting these 374 vacancies under various categories, based on the premise that these are fresh vacancies and such distribution of vacancies is to be done as per the 'Reservation Policy' (SC-15%, ST-7.5% and OBC-27%) and not as per the „Reservation Roster‟, the respondents distributed the vacancies as under:- “i) SC-15% of 374= 56 ii) ST-7.5% of 374 = 28 iii) OBC-27% of 374 = 101 iv) UR=189 Total=374”

7. In view of above, the list dated 26.08.2021 of shortlisted candidates was uploaded on the ITBPF website on 26.08.2021 for the next stage of the recruitment process, i.e. Detailed Medical Examination.

8. As per above, after adding 25% in each category of vacancies, the respondents prepared a category-wise list of total 469 candidates as under:- Category Vacancies Main 25% Extended Total UR 189 189 48 237 SC 56 56 14 70 ST 28 28 7 35 OBC 101 101 26 127 Total 374 374 95 469 However, 24 candidates (SC-6 and OBC-18) who were placed in the extended list of UR category also figured in the reserved list of their own category. Hence, after adjusting these numbers, actually, 445 candidates (UR-213, SC-70, ST-35 & OBC-127) were called for the Detailed Medical Examination.

9. Thus as per the revised/ correct calculation, the break-up of 68 vacancies occurring due to the normal wastage calculated as per post based roster, is as under: - Name of post Vacancies Category wise vacancies UR SC ST OBC Constable (Driver) 68 33 15 10 10

10. The break-up of the 172 fresh vacancies resulted from the raising of two NDRF Bn. are as under: - Name of post Vacancies Category wise vacancies Constable (Driver) 172 89 25 12 46

11. Accordingly, as per respondents now the correct category-wise vacancies, upon adding vacancies detailed in paras 4, 9 and 10 above, are as under:- On the basis of the calculation of category-wise vacancies shown in Para 7 above, 70 candidates of the SC category were called for DME for filling up 56 vacancies of the SC category. Out of these 70 candidates (56+ 14), only 54 could clear the DME. Now, since vacancies have been recalculated as per the chart shown above, in order to fill up 108 vacancies in the SC category, 54 more candidates in the SC category are required. It is further submitted that consequent upon the re-calculation or revision of

4 Total vacancies 374 169 108 27 70 vacancies, as aforementioned, the UR quota has now been reduced to 169 from 189 and as such, a few candidates in the SC category who could find their place in the UR quota (189), owing to their merit may lose their position in the UR quota list which has been drawn as per the earlier UR quota (189) and these candidates (SC category) may have to be adjusted in the overall vacancy now available for the SC category, i.e. 108 and similar is the case in ST and OBC categories.

12. In view of the above we direct the respondents to declare the final result of the Recruitment Advertisement No.02/2018 dated 23.01.2018 for the post of Constable (Driver) published by respondent no.2 and after completing the due process of selection, issue the appointment letter to all the selected candidates detailed in para 11 above within four weeks from today. With the aforesaid observations, we hereby dispose of the aforesaid writ petitions alongwith the pending applications therewith, if any.