Granting Bonus Marks In Recruitment Of Certain Govt Posts Pure Policy Decision, Not Discriminatory If Not Granted For All Posts: Rajasthan HC

Rajasthan High Court has dismissed a petition filed with the prayer to direct the Government to grant 30% bonus marks for appointment on the post of Medical Officer (Dental), since such bonus marking was done by the Government for various other posts.

The Court held that prescribing eligibility conditions including bonus marking was purely a policy decision falling within the domain of the State Government that cannot be interfered with unless it was demonstrably capricious and arbitrary.

The bench of Justice Vinit Kumar Mathur observed,

"If the State Government has chosen not to provide any bonus marks for the services rendered by persons like petitioners on the post of Medical Officer (Dental), then the same cannot be held to be discriminatory simply on the ground that in other recruitment processes, the State Government generally provides for grant of bonus marks. It is the policy decision of the State Government to grant or not to grant the bonus marks in a particular recruitment and the same cannot be interfered with unless it is demonstrably capricious or arbitrary."

The petitioner was an applicant to the post of Medical Officer (Dental) and had prayed that owing to his long years of service to the department, he should be granted 30% bonus marks despite the fact that there was no provision of such bonus marking in the notification for the post.

It was the case of the counsel for the petitioner that such bonus marking was generally prescribed by the State Government in their notification for recruitment on other posts, hence absence of such provision for the post of the Medical Office was alleged to be discriminatory.

On the other hand, the Additional Advocate General argued that the decision regarding granting bonus marks for the services rendered by the candidates on a particular post or not was in the domain of the State Government. In the present case, the State Government did not consider it feasible to grant such bonus marks and this could not be termed as discriminatory.

The Court referred to the Supreme Court case of Sher Singh and Ors. v Union of India & Ors. in which it was held that court would be slow in interfering with the matters of government policy except when it was shown that the decision was unfair, mala fide or contrary to any statutory directions.

Further reference was made to another Supreme Court case of Krishnan Kakkanth v Government of Kerala & Ors. in which it was held that to ascertain unreasonableness and arbitrariness in the context of Article 14, it was not necessary to enter into the exercise of finding out the wisdom in the policy decision. Unless the policy was not informed by any reason and suffered from the vice of discrimination, it could not be struck down.

Finally, the Court mentioned another case of the Supreme Court viz. Satya Dev Bhagaur & Ors. Vs. The State of Rajasthan & Ors. in which a similar policy decision of not granting bonus marks for a particular government post was not considered to be arbitrary.

In the background of this analysis, the Court held no illegality has been committed by the State Government by not providing the bonus marks in the present recruitment process.

Accordingly, the petition was dismissed.

Title: Rajeev Sidana & Anr. v State of Rajasthan & Ors.

Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (Raj) 196

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