Orissa High Court
Himanshu Sekhar Parida And Another vs Union Of India And Others .... Opposite ... on 31 January, 2023
Author: M.S. Raman
Bench: M.S. Raman
IN THE HIGH COURT OF ORISSA AT CUTTACK
W.P.(C) No. 6698 of 2019
Himanshu Sekhar Parida and another .... Petitioners
Mr. Sidheswar Mohanty, Advocate
-versus-
Union of India and others .... Opposite Parties
Mr. Bimbisar Dash, Senior Panel Counsel for OP Nos.1 to 4
CORAM:
THE CHIEF JUSTICE
JUSTICE M.S. RAMAN
ORDER
31.01.2023 Order No.
12. 1. The prayer in the present petition is for a direction to the Opposite Parties which includes the 'Head Quarters Level Selection Committee' represented through its Chairman, Development Commissioner (Handicraft) as well as the Union of India in the Ministry of Textiles (Opposite Party No.1) "to select the entry of the Petitioners for Design Innovation Award 2016" and also to produce the entry of the Petitioners in this Court to ascertain why such product "will not be selected for Design Innovation Award".
2. This is the second round of litigation involving this issue. Earlier the Petitioners had filed W.P.(C) No.7781 of 2018 which was disposed of by this Court on 11th January, 2019 directing the Opposite Parties to declare the result of the Design Innovation Award 2016 within one week. Following the said order, the following letter was written by Opposite Party No.4 to the Petitioners on 5th February, 2019 inter alia stating as under:
Page 1 of 4"In this connection, I am directed to inform you that "as none of the entries for Design Innovation Award for the year 2016 have been found worthy, the Head Quarter Level Committee headed by the D.C(H) has not recommended any entries for consideration of Design Innovation Award and the same has been recorded in the minutes of the Central Level Selection Committee Meeting held on 16.01.2018 as well. It is paramount to mention here that as per the procedure for final selection of a entry the same is needed to be gone through 3-tire committee consisting of the eminent experts in the respective field and the composition of the 3- tire committees are as follows:
I. The first stage selection at the Regional Level Selection Committee: The composition of the Committee is as under:-
1. Director Handicrafts/Cottage Industries of the State of Concerned Region: Chairman
2. Regional Director, Office of the D.C (Handicrafts): Convenor
3. Eminent Craft Experts from NIFT: Member
4. Eminent Craft Expert from NID: Member II. The second stage selection at Head Quarter Level Selection Committee: The composition of the Committee is as under:-
1. Development Commissioner (Handicrafts): Chairman
2. ADC (HC)/Director/Sr. Director (Handicrafts) or equivalent: Convenor
3. Representative from NID: Member
4. Representative from NIFT: Member
5. Sr. Director, NHHM, New Delhi: Member III. The third and final level selection committee Central Level Selection Committee. The composition of the Committee is as under:
1. Secretary (Textiles): Chairman
2. Development Commissioner (Handicrafts): Convenor
3. Development Commissioner (Handlooms): Member Page 2 of 4
4. Managing Director, CCIC, New Delhi: Member
5. Managing Director, HHEC, New Delhi: Member
6. Director General, NIFT, New Delhi: Member
7. Six Non-officials experts from Handicrafts Sector:
Member In the light of the above order of Hon'ble High Court of Odisha, Cuttack, it has been decided that the result of the entries of Design Innovation Award for the year 2016 mentioned above as well as procedure of 3-tier committees referred above for final selection of award is hereby informed for your kind information."
3. Learned counsel appearing for the Petitioners takes exception to the fact that none of the entries were found worthy of the Design Innovation Award 2016. He is insistent that this Court should direct the Opposite Parties to disclose the reasons why no entry was chosen and, in particular, why the Petitioners' entries were rejected.
4. He has also placed before the Court photographs of their entries and insisted that they entries should be returned to the Petitioners by the Opposite Parties.
5. As far as the first prayer is concerned, the Court is of the view that the reply dated 5th February, 2019 received by the Petitioner sufficiently discloses the details of the process of selection which is a 3-tier process. There is a Regional Selection Committee, followed by a Head Quarter Level Selection Committee, and then a third Final Level Selection Committee. The composition of each of the Committees has also been sufficiently disclosed.
6. The selection of entries for the purposes of conferring an award is obviously a subjective assessment based on objective criteria.
Page 3 of 4Since this is not a test or an exam and is only an exercise for conferment of an award, the Court does not consider it appropriate to insist that the reasons for not selecting a particular entry for conferment of an award should be disclosed. These are not the matters capable of being assessed by Courts. In other words, there are no 'judicially manageable standards' for assessing entries of works of design and art and determining whether the decision of expert committees finding no entry suitable for the award should be interfered with by a Court. Consequently, the Court declines to enter into such an exercise at the instance of the Petitioners.
7. As far as return of the Petitioners' entries is concerned, the counter affidavit filed by the Union of India states that these have already been returned to the State Government. In that view of the matter, a direction is issued to the State Government to in turn return the entries to the Petitioners within a period of four weeks from today.
8. Accordingly, the writ petition is disposed of with the above observation and direction.
9. An urgent certified copy of this order be issued as per rules.
(Dr. S. Muralidhar) Chief Justice (M.S. Raman) Judge S. Behera Page 4 of 4