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27. But what could not have been done was the second change, by introduction of the criterion of minimum marks for the interview. The minimum marks for interview had never been adopted by the Andhra Pradesh High Court earlier for selection of District & Sessions Judges, (Grade II).

In regard to the present selection, the Administrative Committee merely adopted the previous procedure in vogue. The previous procedure as stated above was to apply minimum marks only for written examination and not for the oral examination. We have referred to the proper interpretation of the earlier Resolutions dated 24-7-2001 and 21-2-2002 and held that what was adopted on 30-11-2004 was only minimum marks for written examination and not for the interviews. Therefore, introduction of the requirement of minimum marks for interview, after the entire selection process (consisting of written examination and interview) was completed, would amount to changing the rules of the game after the game was played which is clearly impermissible. We are fortified in this view by several decisions of this Court. It is sufficient to refer to three of them -- P.K. Ramachandra Iyer v. Union of India, Umesh Chandra Shukla v. Union of India and Durgacharan Misra v. State of Orissa.

26. Para 13 of Yogesh Yadav is extracted hereinbelow :

(SCC p. 628) "13. The instant case is not a case where no minimum marks are prescribed for viva voce and this is sought to be done after the written test. As noted above, the instructions to the examinees provided that written test will carry 80% marks and 20% marks were assigned for the interview. It was also provided that candidates who secured minimum 50% marks in the general category and minimum 40% marks in the reserved categories in the written test would qualify for the interview. The entire selection was undertaken in accordance with the aforesaid criterion which was laid down at the time of recruitment process. After conducting the interview, marks of the written test and viva voce were to be added. However, since a benchmark was not stipulated for giving the appointment, what is done in the instant case is that a decision is taken to give appointments only to those persons who have secured 70% marks or above marks in the unreserved category and 65% or above marks in the reserved category. In the absence of any rule on this aspect in the first instance, this does not amount to changing the "rules of the game". The High Court has rightly held that it is not a situation where securing of minimum marks was introduced which was not stipulated in the advertisement, standard was fixed for the purpose of selection. Therefore, it is not a case of // 17 // changing the rules of the game. On the contrary in the instant case a decision is taken to give appointment to only those who fulfilled the benchmark prescribed. The fixation of such a benchmark is permissible in law. This is an altogether different situation not covered by Hemani Malhotra case.

28. It is true that there is a distinction in the facts with those in K. Manjusree . We notice that that was a case where the requirement of minimum marks for interview was made after the entire selection process consisting of the written examination and interview was completed and noticing the facts, the Court declared that it would amount to changing the Rules after process is completed. In this case, the stipulation as to the minimum to be obtained in the interview was announced prior to the holding of the interview. However, we would think that this case must fall to be decided on the principle which has been laid down in P.K. Ramachandra Iyer and Durgacharan Misra for the reasons which we have already indicated." 3.17. The decision of the Hon'ble Apex Court in the case of Ramjit Singh Kardam and others Vs. Sanjeev Kumar and Others (2020), 20 SCC 209 was also relied on by the learned counsel for the Petitioner. Hon'ble Apex Court in Paragraphs 33.1,33.2,45, 45.1 & 45.2 of the said judgment has held as follows-: