In Absence Of Criteria To Break A Tie, Selection Committee May Adopt Its Own Yardstick In Consonance With Article 14: J&K&L High Court

The bench comprising Justice Sanjeev Kumar was hearing a petition wherein the petitioner had thrown challenge to a seniority list on the ground that despite the petitioner and respondent having the same merit in the selection of Jr. Stenographers post, conducted pursuant to an advertisement notice and in the absence of any statutory rules or executive instructions governing the breaking of tie, the official respondents should have shown the petitioner senior to respondent, being older in age, which is a normal criteria adopted in such matters.

The counsel for the petitioner had alleged that, in the instant case, the aforesaid criterion of older age was not followed and the petitioner was arbitrarily shown at S.No.2 in the select list of Jr. Stenographers, whereas, respondent was placed at S.No.1.

Contesting the plea the respondents acknowledged the tie between the petitioner and the respondent and that the criteria of having the older age was not adopted in drawing the final merit list. The respondents while not doing so submitted that in the absence of any statutory prescription or executive instructions governing the matter, the tie was resolved on the basis of a past practice which was applied in the instant selection in the case of Jr. Assistants whereby the respondent having higher percentage in the Graduation was placed at S.No.1 of the seniority list, and the petitioner with lesser percentage was placed at S.No.2 and thereafter the seniority list was accordingly framed.

Adjudicating upon the controversy involved the two moot questions before the court were-

(i) whether, in the absence of statutory rules or the executive instructions issued by the competent authority to break the tie between the two or more selected candidates for a particular post, the selection committee is competent to adopt its own yardstick or criterion in consonance with Article 14 and Article 16 of the Constitution of India,

(ii) whether, in the absence of any indication in the selection process as to the criteria adopted by the selection committee for breaking the tie between two or more candidates, who have obtained equal marks in the selection, the placement of such candidates in the select list can be justified on the basis of past practice and on the analogy of the criterion adopted for other posts in the same selection process

Deliberating on the issues the bench observed that ordinarily, the competent authority must indicate the criterion to be followed in such contingency where two or more candidates are tied on particular merit points in the selection and such prescription could be either statutory or made by way of executive instructions. In the absence of such prescription, the selection committee is well within its powers to formulate a fair and rational criteria in consonance with Article 14 of the constitution and apply the same to break the tie wherever required, the bench underscored.

The bench observed that in the matter of selection to these posts the selection committee has broken the tie by having regard to the merit of the candidates in the Graduation. This exactly has been done by the official respondents, though the selection committee has omitted to make a specific mention in this regard,the court recorded.

While dealing with the issue as to whether the criteria claimed to have been applied by the official respondents to break the tie in the instant case is fair and rational and free from vice of arbitrariness, the court observed in the instant case the essential qualification being graduation and both petitioner and respondent having scored equally in the exam, relying upon the essential qualification i.e Graduation for the purpose of breaking the tie is the most rational thing to do.

"The qualification of Graduation is amongst the prescribed qualifications for the post in question and, therefore, relevant for determining the inter se merit of the two candidates who are tied in the selection process", the court observed.

Dismissing the petition the court concluded by observing that preferring a candidate having better merit in the academics but not being older in age cannot, by any stretch of reasoning, be said to be unfair, irrational or arbitrary.

Case Title: Suhail Ahmad Wani V/s SKIMS Medical College Hospital and ors

Citation: 2022 LiveLaw (JKL) 71 

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