Himachal Pradesh High Court: Ajay Mohan J., dismissing the present petition, reiterated the finding of Supreme Court, in the words, “if a person belonging to Scheduled Caste category or may Scheduled Tribe category, is in a position to gain employment on his own merit by scoring marks at level with persons belonging to General category candidates, then such a candidate has to be offered a post belonging to General category so that other Scheduled Caste/Tribe candidates can be appointed against the posts which are reserved for that particular category.”
Himachal Pradesh Staff Selection Commission, Hamirpur invited applications for appointment against various posts, dated 28-12-2019. This included the post of Technician Electrical on contract basis. In terms of the advertisement, four posts of Technician Electrical were advertised. Two were advertised under the category of General, one under the category of EWS and one under the category of Scheduled Caste. The petitioner had applied to be considered for appointment against the post in issue as a General Category candidate. The grievance of the petitioner is that the private respondent stands appointed to the post in issue meant for General category, though the private respondent had applied to be considered for the post in issue under the Scheduled Caste Category.
While dismissing the petition, Court observed, “It is settled law of the land that a person belonging to Scheduled Caste category, if on merit, performs better than General category candidates, then he has to be offered appointment against a post meant for General category and he cannot be pushed down so as to occupy a post reserved for Scheduled Caste category only.”[Deepak Kumar v. Himachal Pradesh Staff Selection, 2021 SCC OnLine HP 138, decided on 14-01-2021]
Sakshi Shukla, Editorial Assistant has put this story together