IN THE HIGH COURT AT CALCUTTA [ CIRCUIT BENCH AT PORT BLAIR ] *** WP.CT/52/2024 IA No. CAN/1/2025 The Lt. Governor and others Vs Smt. Rajina Meri Mr. Rakesh Kumar … for the petitioners Mrs. Anjili Nag, Sr. Adv. Ms. Sohini Biswas … for the respondent July 30, 2026 [SR] Item No.2 1. The writ petition is directed against the judgement and order dated 09th October, 2024 passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal, Kolkata. 2. The grievance of the applicant before the Tribunal under Section 19 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985 was in respect of a recruitment process to the post of Craft Instructors published by the Administration on 20th April, 2015. 43 posts of Craft Instructors were advertised. The said post of Craft Instructors was divided into five different non interchangeable categories as follows: - i. Tailoring and Embroidery ii. Bamboo and Cane Work iii. Music (vocal/instrumental) iv. Compute Applications v. Wood Craft/ Carpenter 3. The said 43 posts however included 10 posts that were in back log from previous years in the ST category. The reservation 2 roster to include General, ST and OBC categories was applied to the whole lot of vacancies of 43 posts. This was found to be erroneous by the Tribunal and rightly so back log unfilled vacancies cannot be clubbed with the current vacancies for the purpose of application of the roster and the same is settled law. 4. The second error found by the Tribunal was application of the roster to all vacancies as a whole and not in the individual non interchangeable 5 categories of Craft Instructors. This was found to be erroneous by the Tribunal and this Court is in complete agreement with the views of the Tribunal in this regard. If the calculation as arrived at by the Tribunal at paragraph 5.3 thereof which is set out herein below the total vacancies to the general category would come to 5. “5.3 DoP&T in its OM dated 25.06.2010 in para 18.1 and 18.2 has stipulated that :- 18.1 While filling up of vacancies in a year, efforts shall be made to make up the shortfall of reservation for all the three categories, namely, SCs, STs and OBCs subject, however, to the condition that total number of vacancies reserved for SCs, STs and OBCs is not more than 50% of the vacancies of the year. 18.2 The ceiling of 50% reservation on filling of reserved vacancies would apply only to the vacancies which arise in the current year and the backlog reserved vacancies of SCs, STs and OBCs in case of direct recruitment and backlog reserved vacancies of SCs and STs in case of promotion of earlier years, would be treated as a separate and distinct group, and would not be considered together with the reserved vacancies of the year in which they are filled for determining the ceiling of 50% reservation on total number of vacancies of that year. Note 1: Shortfall of reservation of a particular reserved category in a cadre means the difference between the 'total number of reserved posts for that category in the cadre’ and ‘the number of persons of that category appointed by reservation and holding the posts in the cadre’.” Note 2 : Backlog reserved vacancies of a category are those vacancies which were earmarked reserved for that category in an earlier recruitment year but remained unfilled in the previous recruitment attempt on account of non availability of suitable 3 candidates belonging to that category and are still lying unfilled.” In the instant case, a total of 10 vacancies were identified as backlog vacancies of STs. For the posts of Craft Instructor (Tailoring and Embroidery), 3 posts were reserved for STs which were backlog vacancies. The vacancy for the current year for the posts of Craft Instructor (Tailoring and Embroidery) is 7. Percentage of reservation for OBC category being 38, total number of posts of Craft Instructors (Tailoring and Embroidery) reserved for OBC category ought to be 0.38 * 7 = 1.84 or 2. Respondents in their reply have confirmed that the vacancy for ST in the current year is nil. Therefore the number of vacancies in the General category ought to have been 7-2=5. 5. Yet another error found by the Tribunal is that the respondents had declared 7 vacancies out of 10 in the reserved category and the only 3 in the general category. This would take the reservation of the posts beyond 50%. 6. Admittedly in terms of dicta of the Supreme Court in the case of Indra Sawhney vs Union of India reported at 1992(3) SCC (suppl) 217, a reservation under Article 16 (4) or 16 (1) for that matter, cannot exceed 50% of the total vacancies. The Tribunal also found error on the part of respondents in this regard. 7. In the light of the above the calculation arrived by the Tribunal as evident from paragraph 5.3 of the impugned judgment, is correct and sustainable in law and the same is upheld by us. 8. However the first sentence comprising in three lines of paragraph 5.5 of the impugned order are erroneous. They run contrary to the findings of the Tribunal in the previous paragraph that category wise reservation is the norm and not 4 application of the roster on the total number of vacancies. The sentence shall sand set aside. 9. In the light of the above impugned order passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal dated 09th October, 2026 is upheld to the extent modified to the above. 10. WP.CT/52/2024 fails and thereby dismissed. 11. The respondents shall issue appointment letter to the writ petitioner mandatorily and positively within a period of three weeks from date, if he is found otherwise eligible. 12. Consequently all CAN applications are also stand disposed of. (Rajasekhar Mantha, J.) (Partha Sarathi Sen, J.)