Quotes from Anurag patel Case

Case Details:

In Anurag Patel Vs Uttar Pradesh Sate Public Service commission(2005 9 SCC 742), the Apex court was approached by OBC candidates who got selection in general. Two of them who has secured rank 13 and 14 in the merit list, were appointed as Sales Tax Officer-II, whereas the persons who secured rank Nos. 38, 72 and 97, ranks lower to them, got appointment as Deputy Collectors. This anomaly was corrected by the court which ordered to prepare a list combining OBCs and OBCs who came in general as per rank and person higher in rank will get service of his choice. If this case is applied, then there will be 190 OBCs plus 76 OBCs who came in merit. A combined list of 266 needs to be prepared and services originally available to them earlier against their rank be redistributed so that higher ranked candidate will get higher preferred service. This was done in the results declared on 16th May 2008 due to the verdict of Mardas High Court.

The Anurag Patel verdict says,

"... list of all selected Backward candidates shall be prepared separately including those candidates selected in the general category and their appointments to the posts shall be strictly in accordance with the merit as per the select list and preference of person higher in the select list will be seen first and appointment given accordingly, while preference of person lower in the list will be seen only later. We do not think any error or illegality in the direction issued by the Division Bench of the High Court”

By this there will be no change in the total number of services available to this category. The logic behind this methodology is that when it comes to service allocation, OBC candidates who obtained higher ranking in unreserved category should not be put to a disadvantage in comparison to those OBC’s who come by relaxed standards. At the same time, it will not be detrimental to the interests of reserved candidates who could have got selection but were not. This is the only way by which the community wise representation will not be altered. This methodology does not alter or affect other community’s share in selection and allotment. Had this methodology been followed, 266 OBC candidates and 129 SC would have been selected against their present number of 190 OBC and 109 SC. It would also ensure that slots vacated by reserved candidates from general would only go to some other reserved candidates.

Instead of taking cognizance of Anurag Patel verdict, the authorities take stand that this verdict cannot be applied in Civil Service Examination. The Combined State Services/Upper Subordinate Services Examination conducted by UPPSC is similar to Civil Services Examination conducted by UPSC in which several services, like UP Civil (Executive) Service (for Dy. Collector Posts), UP Police Service (for DSP posts), UP Finance & Accounts Service(for Treasury Officer/Accounts Officer Posts) etc. participate each year. The pattern of Combined State Services Examination conducted by UPPSC is also similar to Civil Services Examination conducted by UPSC. The process of selection in the above said examination conducted by UPPSC is also done in three stages, viz, preliminary examination, mains examination and the personality test/interview, as is done for Civil Services Examination conducted by UPSC. Hence their stand does not seem to be valid