Jammu:The High Court today dismissed the appeal challenging the fresh selection process undertaken by the J&K Bank for the posts of Probationary Officers and Banking Assistants by recording that the earlier selection process had not culminated as such to challenge the fresh selection by the Bank is impermissible and allowed the bank to proceed with the selection process.
The writ court had dismissed the plea of about 452 aggrieved candidates who had approached the court in two writ petitions challenging the cancellation of selection process for the 350 posts of Probationary Officers and 1500 posts of Banking Assistants via on line registration of forms.
Writ court had said that since the selection process had not been completed as such the petitioners have no right to dispute the decision of the respondents-Bank to go for a denovo exercise (fresh selection process) for the posts in question.
Against the judgment, the aggrieved candidates challenged the same by way of an appeal and the Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Pankaj Mithal and Justice V C Koul dismissed the appeal also by recording that there is no merit in the appeal.
The DB said that there is no arbitrariness in the cancellation of the selection process as the court records that it stands admitted to the appellants that the respondent-Bank had the authority to cancel the selection process and the stand of the respondents that the recruitment process in question had gone wrong stands substantiated by the records.
The respondent-Bank have construed the recruitment district wise and framed the merit list accordingly. Moreover, the respondents have not applied the rule of reservation in the selection process which certainly was incurable. “Therefore, the cancellation of the selection process is justified and is not arbitrary”, the DB added.
Government before the court contended that no fundamental, legal or statutory right of the appellants was infringed by cancelling the selection process as the process for the post of Probationary Officers was changed mid course, which was bad in law and not consistent with the recruitment policy of the Bank.