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"18. These cases are squarely covered by the judgment of this Court in Hemani Malhotra v. High Court of Delhi, wherein it has been held that it was not permissible for the High Court to change the criteria of selection in the midst of selection process. This Court in All India Judges' Assn. (3) case had accepted Justice Shetty Commission's Report in this respect i.e. that there should be no requirement of securing the minimum marks in interview, thus, this ought to have been given effect to. The Court had issued directions to offer the appointment to candidates who had secured the requisite marks in aggregate in the written examination as well as in interview, ignoring the requirement of securing minimum marks in interview. In pursuance of those directions, the Delhi High Court offered the appointment to such candidates. Selection to the post involved herein has not been completed in any subsequent years to the selection process under challenge. Therefore, in the instant case, in absence of any statutory requirement of securing minimum marks in interview, the High Court ought to have followed the same principle. In such a fact situation, the question of acquiescence would not arise.

15. In view of the aforesaid, we have no doubt in our mind that since the scheme of selection, as made in the rules nowhere contemplates prescription of the minimum cutoff marks for viva voce/interview, in the light of the law laid- down by the Apex Court in Ramesh Kumar (supra), such a prescription in the advertisement was not permissible.

16. Reverting to the decision of the Supreme Court in Ramesh Kumar (supra), which, in our opinion, is directly on the point. The High Court of Delhi in the advertisement issued for the selection process, as in the present case, had prescribed minimum of 50% marks for General category and 45% marks for Reserved category in the viva voce test. That prescription has been found to be norms for selection and not a procedural matter. On that finding, the Supreme court opined that the selection process must be carried forward on the basis of the norms for selection prescribed in the statutory rules in force. In absence of statutory rule on that subject/issue, the appointment process must be in conformity with the decisions of the Supreme Court (including in All India Judges' Association (3) Vs. Union of India). In para 18, the Court concluded that in absence of any statutory requirement of securing minimum marks in interview, the Delhi High Court ought to have followed the same principles as envisaged in All India Judges' Association (3) case and the argument of acquiescence can be of no avail. Notably, in that case the Court granted relief to the writ petitioners before it because, the selection to the post involved had not been completed in any subsequent years to the selection process under challenge. This is amply clear from the dictum in paragraph 18 of the said decision which is extracted in its entirety in paragraph 11 above.

17. Accordingly, even if the present set of writ petitioners before this Court would succeed on the argument that minimum cut off marks for viva voce/interview cannot be prescribed by way of advertisement inviting applications, the question is whether any relief can be granted to the petitioners. As has been pointed out earlier, the Rules before amendment expressly provided that unfilled vacancies during the concerned selection process shall not be carried forward. Indeed, after the amendment, unfilled vacancies in the given selection process can be carried forward. However, as per the Rules, those vacancies get subsumed in the following selection process. In other words, the unfilled vacancies of the selection process of the year 2007 got merged and subsumed in the vacancies notified in the year 2008. As a result, 20 vacancies were notified in the year 2008. In the selection process for the year 2008 only 9 candidates were selected and the unfilled vacancies were merged and subsumed in the vacancies notified in the year 2010. As a result, in 2010, 20 vacancies were advertised as against which only 3 candidates were selected. Indeed, the writ petitioners participated in the said selection process but the unfilled vacancies as per the Rules got subsumed in the vacancies notified for selection process of the subsequent year(s). The High Court has already notified all the vacancies in the advertisement issued in 2014. Considering the fact that the advertisement issued on 28.11.2014 for examination of Entry Level 2015, 83 vacancies/posts have been notified which include the unfilled vacancies in the examination conducted in 2010, no relief can be granted to these writ petitioners unlike in the case of Ramesh Kumar (supra), wherein the selection process to the post against which relief was claimed by the writ petitioner had not been completed in any subsequent year to the selection process under challenge. Notably, there is no challenge to the rule providing for merging or subsuming of vacant posts in relation to examination conducted in 2010 in the subsequent advertisement(s) issued for that purpose, for which reason also the petitioners cannot succeed in getting any relief.

(v) The interview shall carry 50 marks and minimum 20 marks have to be secured by the candidates.

(vi) Candidates shall be selected on the basis of marks obtained by them in each paper of the main written examination and interview separately, subject to obtaining minimum marks as fixed by the High Court in the written examination as well as in the interview.

(vii) On completion of the selection process, the result of examination (list of selected candidates) shall be published in M.P. Rajpatra. The result of all the candidates both successful and unsuccessful shall be declared on the website of the M.P. High Court ."