Facts: The petitioner, a Project Affected Person (PAP), applied for a Group C (Class III) position after an advertisement in 2015. She scored 50/200 in the written exam, while the passing criteria was 90/200. She challenged the Maharashtra Administrative Tribunal's order dismissing her application, arguing that PAPs should have a separate, lower passing criteria than the open category. She relied on a Government Resolution (GR) dated 27/10/2009, which provides 5% reservation for PAPs.
Procedural Posture: The petitioner filed a writ petition in the High Court of Bombay challenging the order of the Maharashtra Administrative Tribunal, which had dismissed her original application.
Issue: Does prescribing the same passing criteria for Project Affected Persons (PAPs) and open category candidates in a recruitment examination amount to treating unequals equally, thereby violating Article 14 of the Constitution of India, and is it arbitrary or unreasonable?
Holding: No, prescribing the same passing criteria for PAPs and open category candidates does not amount to hostile discrimination or violate Article 14, as long as the conditions stipulated in the Government Resolution providing for reservation are fulfilled. The writ petition is dismissed.
Reasoning: The Court found that the GR dated 27/10/2009 provides for a 5% reservation for PAPs, but this is subject to the conditions stipulated in the GR. The conditions are not unreasonable or arbitrary. The advertisement was duly issued, and the petitioner participated in the selection process without challenging the conditions. The Court stated that prescribing the same passing criteria for open category candidates and PAPs does not amount to hostile discrimination, and it is only upon passing the written examination that the petitioner's case would be considered against the 5% reservation. The Court referred to a full bench decision which held that project affected persons must compete with each other under the recruitment rules. The court held that requiring the petitioner to pass the examination cannot be said to be unreasonable or arbitrary merely because the passing criteria is the same for the open category candidates as well as the PAPs.