Orissa High Court
WP(C)/8757/2020 on 19 January, 2021
W.P.(C) No. 8757 of 2020
06. 19.01.2021 1. The Court is convened through video conferencing mode.
2. Heard Mr. Asok Mohanty, learned Senior Advocate for the Petitioner, Mr. P.K. Parhi, learned Assistant Solicitor General of India for Opposite Party Nos. 1 and 2 and Mr. M.S. Sahoo, learned Additional Government Advocate for the State - Opposite Party No.3.
3. The grievance of the Petitioner is that by letter dated 12th February, 2020 of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Department of Higher Education, Government of India (Annexure-8 to the writ petition), his representation dated 20th November, 2019, protesting against the Presidential Award of Certificate of Honour in Classical Odiya for 2019 to Opposite Party No.4 has been wrongly rejected.
4. Earlier since his representation dated 20th November, 2019 received no response, the Petitioner file dW.P.(C) No. 28671 of 2019 in this Court. By an order dated 17th January, 2020 the said writ petition was disposed of by this Court with a direction that if the Petitioner produced a certified copy of the said order within seven days, the Opposite Party Nos. 1 to 3 would consider his representation in accordance with the statutory provisions and guidelines and take consequential steps accordingly.
-2-5. The prayer in this writ petition is two-fold. One is to quash the aforementioned Presidential Award of Certificate of Honour in Classical Odiya, 2019 in favour of Opposite Party No.4; and the other is for a direction to Opposite Party Nos. 1 to 3 to award the said Certificate to the Petitioner.
6. The ground on which the Petitioner assails the award of the aforementioned certificate in favour of the Opposite Party No.4 is that there are several irregularities in the process of selection. According to the Petitioner, all three sets of nomination papers were filled up by the nominee himself; the self-explanation given by Opposite Party No.4 about his teaching experience is 'unbelievable and baseless'; Opposite Party No.4 has not obtained the Ph.D. degree from any University; he has not worked in Odiya language, literature, history and culture; none of his books has been recognized as text book in any educational institutions; he has no research work in the field of Classical Odiya, and therefore he cannot be said to be a scholar of eminence in Classical Odiya.
7. The further case of the Petitioner is that the Opposite Party No.4 does not fulfill the basic eligibility criteria for the award in question and therefore, the discretion vested in the authorities has not been exercised in the manner prescribed.
-3-8. Mr. Asok Mohanty, learned Senior Advocate appearing for the Petitioner, submitted that the Opposite Party No.5, had himself nominated Opposite Party No.4 for the award in question, and later he was the Member of the Selection Committee. This, according to him, vitiates the entire selection process. He submitted that though there were two persons including the Petitioner within the domain of 'A' category nominees, they were ignored and the Opposite Party No.4 was chosen for the award of the certificate in question illegally and arbitrarily. Mr. Mohanty, further submitted that the State's action in the area of distribution of largesse has to be tested on the touchstone of Article 14 of the Constitution of India.
9. In response to the notice issued in the present writ petition, a counter affidavit dated 9th December, 2020 has been filed by the Director, Odia Bhasa Pratisthan, Odisha, on behalf of the Opposite Party No.3 (the Chief Secretary, Government of Odisha). The entire process involved in the selection of Opposite Party No.4 for the award has been explained in detail. The MHRD issued a Notification dated 1st March, 2019, which was addressed to the Chief Secretaries of all the State Governments, the Education Secretary of all the State Governments, and Vice-Chancellors of the State Universities in Odisha, inviting the name of scholars of eminence over 60 years of age with outstanding contribution in various languages for the Presidential Award of Certificate of Honour for the Year -4- 2019. The names were to be forwarded by 30th April, 2019, which was subsequently extended upto 15th June, 2019. In the said letter, request was made to maintain complete secrecy and dignity of the award by not entertaining any application or request from individual scholars themselves. Discreet enquiries were permitted to be made for collecting full information/details about the concerned scholar from other sources and the scholars themselves not supposed to know that their names have been considered for recommendation. It was also made clear that no material furnished by the scholar himself or herself should be entertained or sent along with the recommendation.
10. It is further explained that although it was not mandatory to set up an Expert Committee for preliminary selection of the Scholars, nonetheless a Committee comprising of three eminent scholars with knowledge in Odiya (1) Prof. Dr. Udaynath Sahu, (2) Dr. Bijaylaxmi Mohanty and (3) the Director, Odia Bhasa Pratisthan, under the Chairmanship of the Principal Secretary to the Government, Odiya Language, Literature and Culture Department, was constituted. Based on the suggestion of this Committee, the name of Opposite Party No.4 along with the name of the Petitioner was recommended following the guidelines prescribed by the MHRD. It is pointed out that the name of Opposite Party No.4 and one other eminent scholar of Odiya were recommended by letter dated 20th April, 2019 -5- addressed to the MHRD. Subsequently, the Petitioner's name was also recommended by a letter dated 28th June, 2019 although the last date of submission of the applications was 15th June, 2019.
11. Based on the recommendations received, a Selection Committee comprising of eminent scholars and dignitaries of different languages under the Chairmanship of a distinguished scholar with good knowledge in Sanskrit recommended the name of Opposite Party No.4, and this was approved by the President of India.
12. It is pointed out that teaching experience is not the only factor for selection. There are other factors, which are (1) the nominee must have worked in classical texts of languages and about classical phase of the language, even though the resultant works might be in modern form of language (2) the nominee must have written and published books on the classical language subject (3) the nominee must have done exemplary work in the respective languages. It is further pointed out that obtaining Ph.D. Degree from a recognized university is not a criteria for the selection of Presidential Award. It is added that the Opposite Party No.4 has worked in the field of Odiya language, literature and culture and he has also done a lot of research work in the field of classical Odiya.
-6-13. As far as the stand of MHRD is concerned, the impugned letter dated 12th February, 2020 sent by it to the Petitioner states that in the two-stage process of selection, there is a pre-scrutiny Screening Committee with language experts for making initial scrutiny of the works of the scholars and their assessments of the scholars are compiled. In the next stage, a Selection Committee constituted by a distinguished scholar with good knowledge in Sanskrit as Chairman and Specialist (experts) in languages as Members, exaines the assessments of the scholars by the pre-scrutiny Screening Committee, which are only recommendatory in nature and not binding upon the Selection Committee. The recommendations of the Selection Committee, comprising of eminent scholars and dignitaries as its members are approved at the level of the Unione HRD Minister, the Prime Minister and the President of India.
14. As far as Opposite Party No.4 is concerned, it is stated by the MHRD that his name was recommended by three recommending authorities, two of which have furnished a duly signed Character Certificate, which was sufficient for considering his nomination for the Presidential Award. It is reiterated that experience in teaching was not the only factor to be considered, and there are many other factors on which a holistic view has been taken for consideration of the award.
-7-15. Having heard the learned counsel for the parties, the Court is satisfied that there is no illegality in the procedure adopted for selecting Opposite Party No.4 for the award in question. As already explained, it was a two-stage process. In the first stage a pre-scrutiny Screening Committee recommended names, which was then placed before the Selection Committee. Thereafter this was approved by the Union HRD Minister, the Prime Minister and then the President of India. The mere fact that Opposite Party No.5, who was one of the persons who recommended the name of Opposite Party No.4, was part of the Selection Committee, would not vitiate the selection process, particularly considering the fact that he was one among 10 eminent persons in the Selection Committee, whose decision was unanimous. It is not possible to countenance the submission that because of this, the entire process stood vitiated. Admittedly, there is no allegation that the remaining nine persons of the Selection Committee were persuaded by Opposite Party No.5 to recommend the name of Opposite Party No.4 for the award.
16. As far as eligibility is concerned, the Court is satisfied that the mere fact that Opposite Party No.4 may not have a Ph.D. degree would not disentitle him to the award. As rightly explained, the teaching experience and research are two of the criteria that might be considered amongst many others for grant of the award. The Court is satisfied that the view taken by both the pre-scrutiny Screening Committee as well as the Selection -8- Committee on the eminence of Opposite Party No.4 is a plausible one and there is no illegality attached to the ultimate decision in selecting Opposite Party No.4 for the award. Further, these are not the matters in which the Court can sit in appeal over the subjective assessment of the candidates by the experts in the filed who appear to have taken concurent and unanimous decisions at two stages.
17. No ground has been made out to persuade the Court to grant the reliefs prayed for. The writ petition is accordingly dismissed. However, there shall be no order as to costs.
18. As the restrictions due to the COVID-19 situation are continuing, learned counsel for the parties may utilize a soft copy of this order available in the High Court's website or print out thereof at par with certified copy in the manner prescribed, vide Court's Notice No.4587, dated 25th March, 2020.
( Dr. S. Muralidhar )
Chief Justice
(S.K. Mishra)
A.Dash/PS Judge
19th January,2021