2026:JHHC:11307 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JHARKHAND AT RANCHI W.P.(S) No. 2473 of 2018 --- Raju Prasad Dehariya, aged about 37 years, son of Dhuran Lal Dehariya, House No.239, Kanta Shravan Jayram Estate, P.O. & P.S.-Ayodhya Nagar, District Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh), PIN 462041 … Petitioner VERSUS 1. Central Coalfields Limited through its Chairman-cum- Managing Director, Darbhanga House, Kutchery Road, at & PO-Darbhanga House, District-Ranchi-834001: 2. Director (Personnel), Central Coalfields Limited, Darbhanga House, Kutchery Road, at & P.O.-Darbhanga House, District-Ranchi-834001; 3. General Manager (P-MP & Recruitment)), Central Coalfields Limited, Darbhanga House, Kutchery Road, at & PO Darbhanga House, District-Ranchi-834001; 4. Pitambar Pandey, son of Sri Dasarath Pandey, presently posted as E.P. Electrician (Extension), Grade-D through the office of General Manager (Personnel/Manpower and Recruitment/Non-executive Establishment), Headquarter, Central Coalfields Limited, Darbhanga House, P.O.-Ranchi University, P.S.-Gonda, District-Ranchi; 5. Dilip Kumar, son of Sri Jamuna Singh, resident of Village- Makoli, P.O.-Makoli, P.S.-Chandrapura, District-Bokaro- 829144 …Respondents --- CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE DEEPAK ROSHAN ---- For the Petitioner : Mr. Pandey Neeraj Rai, Advocate For the Respondents : M/s. Amit Kumar Sinha, Uday Prakash, Ashish Kumar Shekhar, Advocates For the Resp.No.4 :M/s.Uday Prakash, Manoj Kr.Sinha, Advs. --- C.A.V. ON: 17.02.2026 PRONOUNCED ON: 18/04/2026 The present writ petition arises out of an Employment Notice vide Ref. No. CCL/Recruitment/Adv./03/2016/02 dated 28.03.2016 issued by the Respondent–Central Coalfields Limited for recruitment to various posts including the post of EP Electrician (Excv.)/Tech. in Grade-D, wherein total (48+16=64) vacancies were advertised (including 16 backlog posts for STs); out of those 48 posts in regular vacancy, 26 2026:JHHC:11307 2 were Unreserved, 12 for ST, 5 for SC and 5 for OBC. The petitioner, claiming candidature under the SC category, participated in the selection process and appeared in the written examination held on 29.04.2017, and upon declaration of result, was placed in the waitlist panel. 2. The case of the petitioner is that though five appointment letters were issued under the SC category, one candidate from the waitlist came to be appointed upon non- joining of a selected candidate namely Pitambar Pandey, who was originally an Unreserved Category candidate, but subsequently considered and appointed under the SC Category on the basis of a caste certificate issued after the last date of submission of applications, i.e., 30.04.2016; thereby rendering such appointment illegal. According to the petitioner, he, being next in the waitlist under the SC category, was entitled to be considered for appointment. The petitioner submitted representation dated 09.03.2018 and also sought information under the RTI Act, 2005; however, no response was received. He further approached the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, but in absence of any effective redressal, the present writ petition has been filed. 3. Learned counsel for the petitioner has submitted that the said Employment Notice dated 28.03.2016 suffers from a 2026:JHHC:11307 3 fundamental error in determination of reservation, inasmuch as, according to the applicable reservation policy in the respondent company, 50% of the posts are required to be reserved for the SC, ST and OBC categories; however, the respondents have failed to implement the same in its true spirit and proportion. He has further submitted that against 48 notified vacancies, as many as 26 posts have been filled under the unreserved category; whereas, upon proper calculation, the number of such posts ought to have been 24. According to the petitioner, the fractional components arising in the computation of reserved vacancies for SC, ST and OBC categories have been erroneously adjusted in favour of the unreserved category, resulting in reduction of the share of reserved categories. 4. Learned counsel has further submitted that so far as the SC category is concerned; the applicable percentage works out to be 5.76, which upon application of the rule of rounding off, ought to have been treated as 6 vacancies; however, only five appointments have been made. 5. Learned counsel has also contended that the respondents have selectively relied upon Clause 4.1 of the DoPT Office Memorandum dated 17.11.2011, which provides for ignoring fractions, while completely overlooked Clause 4.5(iii)(b) thereof, which envisages rounding off of fractions to 2026:JHHC:11307 4 the nearest whole number while determining the reservation quota. According to the petitioner, Clause 4.5 is illustrative of the correct method of earmarking reservation and has not been properly applied in the present case. 6. Per contra, learned counsel for the respondents submits that the determination of reservation quota has been carried out rightly and has referred to point no. 2.3 of Chapter 2 on the ‘Scope of Reservation’ in the ‘Brochure on Reservation for SC, ST and OBC in Services’ wherein it is stated that except in Delhi reservation for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, in case of direct recruitment to Group ‘C’ and Group ‘D’ posts, normally attracting candidates from a locality or a region is generally fixed on the basis of proportion of their population in the respective States/UTs. Since, quantum of reservation for SCs, STs and OBCs for the State of Jharkhand is fixed at 12%, 26% and 12% respectively, therefore, for the instant post of EP Electrician (Excv.)/Tech, vacancies for that current/relevant year being 48 only; application of the prescribed percentages yields 5.76 posts each for SC and OBC and 12.48 for ST, which, upon ignoring fractions, results in 5 posts each for SC and OBC and 12 for ST, totalling 22 reserved posts, with the remaining 26 falling under the unreserved category. 7. He has further submitted that the above calculation are in accordance to the terms of Clause 4.1 of Chapter 4- 2026:JHHC:11307 5 ‘Determination of Reservation Quota’, whereby reserved posts are to be determined by multiplying the cadres strength by the percentage of reservation prescribed for respective categories, with fractions to be ignored; and further submitted that Clause 4.4 has also been followed which mentions that the 50% ceiling applies only to current/relevant vacancies, and backlog vacancies are to be treated separately. 8. Learned counsel for the Respondent No. 4 (Pitambar Pandey) had submitted that the said respondent had applied for the notified post under the SC Category and had furnished a valid caste certificate dated 23.10.2014, i.e., prior to the last date of submission of applications, being 30.04.2016. He had also submitted that although the Respondent No. 4 is reflected at Serial No. 19 in the merit list under the unreserved category, his name also appears at Serial No. 1 in the waitlist under the SC category in the same merit list, which, according to the learned counsel, is in accordance with the applicable norms. 9. Having heard Ld. Counsel for the parties and upon perusal of the materials available on record, it transpires that the present writ petition arises out of an Employment Notice vide Ref. No. CCL/Recruitment/Adv./03/2016/02 dated 28.03.2016 issued by the respondent–CCL for recruitment including posts for EP Electrician (Excv.)/Tech, 2026:JHHC:11307 6 wherein the petitioner, claiming his candidature under the SC Category, participated in the selection process and was placed in the waitlist. The grievance of the petitioner essentially relates to non-consideration of his candidature for appointment on the ground that the respondents, while determining the reserved vacancies, ignored fractional computation, thereby allegedly deprived him of appointment against an additional post claimed to be available under the SC category. 10. It transpires from the record that the petitioner had also approached the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, New Delhi in connection with the present dispute, whereupon an expert opinion was obtained and placed before the Commission for consideration. Upon such examination, it was opined that the action of the respondent–CCL in ignoring the fractional figure of 0.76 and fixing the number of posts for the SC category at 5 was in consonance with the applicable rules and no violation had been committed. The relevant instruction in this regard as contained in paragraph 6 of the Explanatory note of the OM dated 02.07.1997 is quoted hereinbelow: “As indicated to the Model Roster, the method for making a Roster is to multiply each post by the prescribed percentages of reservation for the different reserved categories. The point at which the multiple for a community obtains a complete number or oversteps the number is to be reserved for the community, while taking care to evenly spare out the different reserved category.” 2026:JHHC:11307 7 The aforesaid principle is still intact, inasmuch as, even with the subsequent introduction of reservation for Economically Weaker Sections has been provisioned vide OM dated 31.01.2019 followed by the Model Roster to accommodate the same. It is thus evident that fractional values such as 0.99, 0.98, 0.95, etc., are to be ignored unless the multiple touches a whole number or oversteps it. 11. So far as the contention of the petitioner is considered, that Clause 4.1 cannot be read in isolation; rather it is to be read with clause 4.5, particularly sub-clause (iii)(b); it is evident from a plain reading of Clause 4.5(iii)(b) that the said provision applies only in cases where shortfall is more than the respective percentage of that current/relevant year vacancies. In the present case, no such backlog or shortfall has been shown to exist in the SC category. Consequently, the question of invoking Clause 4.5(iii)(b) for computation of reserved posts does not arise, and the rule of rounding off, as sought to be relied upon by the petitioner, is not applicable in the facts of the case. For brevity, the contents of Clause 4.5 (iii) (b) is reproduced for a better appreciation of the case: "Shortfall of SCs and OBCs was more than 15% and 27% respectively of the current vacancies. Therefore, 15% of the current vacancies were straightaway earmarked for SCs and 27% for OBCs i.e. 30 vacancies earmarked for reserved for SCs and 54 for the OBCs. Shortfall for STs was 10 which is less than 7.5% of total vacancies. Therefore only 10 vacancies were earmarked for STs. Applying the above principle, 94 vacancies were earmarked reserved. This left room for 6{100-(30+54 +10)} more vacancies to be earmarked reserved to make up the shortfall. These 6 vacancies were apportioned between SCs and OBCs in the ratio of percentage of reservation prescribed for these categories viz 15:27 i.e. 2 for SCs and 4 for OBCs (fraction rounded off to the nearest whole number. 2026:JHHC:11307 8 However, while making such distribution, it has to be kept in view that the number of vacancies earmarked reserved for any category is not more than the shortfall of that category. Thus final earmarking of reservation in respect of the vacancies for the year 2007 was 32 for SCs, 10 for STs and 58 for OBCs." 12. It is also a settled proposition of law that a candidate who has consciously participated in a selection process cannot subsequently turn around and challenge the advertisement or the methodology adopted by the respondents after being declared unsuccessful. In the present case, the petitioner, having applied pursuant to the advertisement, participated in the entire process of selection including the Written Examination and having subjected himself to the terms and conditions thereof, cannot now be permitted to question the same merely because he has not been offered appointment. In this regard, reference may be made to the judgment rendered by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of Rekha Sharma v. The Rajasthan High Court, Jodhpur1 and the relevant portion is quoted hereinbelow: “16. As well settled, the candidates who consciously took part in the process of selection cannot be permitted to question the advertisement or the methodology adopted by the respondents for making selection, on their having been declared as unsuccessful in the Preliminary Examinations. The appellants after they having found that their names do not appear in the list of successful candidates of Preliminary Examination, could not have questioned the result on the ground that the respondents had not declared the cut off marks for the Persons with benchmark disabilities. As stated earlier, the respondents have declared the cut off marks for the persons falling under Compartmentalised Horizontal Reservation and not for the Overall Horizontal Reservation under which the appellants fall. Such action could neither be said to be arbitrary nor violative of Article 14, 16 and 21 of the Constitution of India.” 1 2024 SCC OnLine SC 2109 2026:JHHC:11307 9 13. In view of the discussions made hereinabove and having regard to the applicable guidelines governing reservation, this Court finds no infirmity in the action of the respondents in determining the number of reserved posts and in ignoring the fraction while calculating reservation for the Scheduled Caste category. 14. Accordingly, the instant writ petition stands dismissed. Pending I.A.s, if any, also stand closed. (Deepak Roshan, J.) Jk Uploaded on 21 /04/2026 A.F.R