Holding

The Supreme Court held that the High Court was correct: the 46.5 general‑category seats must be rounded up to 47, the insertion of the three horizontally reserved posts into the general quota breached the 50% reservation ceiling, and therefore the appeal is dismissed.

Summary

In Uttar Pradesh, 93 vacancies for Civil Judge (Junior Division) were to be filled with reservations as per the 1993 and 1994 Uttar Pradesh Public Service Acts. The prescribed percentages yielded 46.5 seats for the general category, which the High Court held should be rounded up to 47, and three seats reserved for freedom‑fighters and ex‑servicemen were inserted into the general quota, displacing three general‑category candidates, including the petitioner who topped the waiting list. The High Court also observed that allocating 47 reserved seats would make reservation exceed the constitutional ceiling of 50% of total vacancies. The State appealed, arguing a different rounding approach, but the Supreme Court affirmed the High Court’s reasoning, stating that the rounding rule (upward if the fraction is 0.5 or more) applies and that the reservation cannot exceed 50% of the total posts. Consequently, the appeal was dismissed.

Issues considered

Whether the fractional reservation figure of 46.5 for the general category should be rounded up to 47 under the rule of rounding off.
Whether inserting three horizontally reserved posts for freedom‑fighters and ex‑servicemen into the general quota violates the reservation ceiling.
Whether the total reservation exceeding 50% of the total vacancies is unconstitutional.

Legislation cited

Uttar Pradesh Public Service (Reservation) for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes Act, 1994

Subjects

reservationjudicial servicerounding offconstitutional ceilinghorizontal reservationmerit listcivil judge appointment

Judgment

STATE OF U.P. AND ANR. A
V.

PAWAN KUMAR TIWARI AND ORS.

JANUARY 4, 2005

[R.C. LAHOTI, CJ., G.P. MATHUR AND A.K. MATHUR, JJ.) B

Service Law:

Reservation-Judicial service in State of UP.-Allocation of seats to
reserved and general categories-Rounding off-Held, if part is one-half or C
more, its value shall be increased to one, ifpart is less than half its value shall
be ignored-If reservation exceeds 50%, it would be unconstitutional-
Doctrine-Rule of rounding off.

In the State of Uttar Pradesh, 93 posts of Civil Judge (Junior D
Division) were to be filled up. According to prescribed percentage of
reservation 46.50 posts in the general category were to be filled up. But
only 46 candidates in the general category were selected whereas 47
candidates in various reserved categories were selected. The writ petition
filed by respondent No. I, a general category candidate, having been
allowed by the High Court, the State Government filed the present appeal. E
Dismissing the appeal, the Court

HELD: I. The High Court was right in holding that the figure of
46.50 in the general category should have been rounded off to 47, and
inserting the 3 posts reserved for freedom fighters and ex-servicemen into F
general quota had the effect of pushing out of selection zone 3 candidates
from merit list of general category. (23-C-D[

2. Besides, out of the total number of 93 vacancies, reserved seats
could not be more than 46 otherwise the reservation would exceed 50%
which would be unconstitutional. (24-A] G
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Civil Appeal No. 4079 of2004.

From the Judgment and Order dated 19.8.2003 of the Allahabad High
Court in C.M.W.P. No. 38940 of 1999.
21 H
22 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [2005) 1 S. C.R.

A Ravi Prakash Mehrotra, Garvesh Kabra and Mrs. Deepti Mehrotra for
the Appellants.

Lakshmi Raman Singh and Shail Kr. Dwivedi, for the Respondent No. I.

Mrs. Shobha Dikshit, Rajeev Kr. Dubey and Kamlendra Mishra for the
B Respondent No. 2.
The .Judgment of the Court was delivered by

R.C. LAHOTI, CJ. In the year 1997 the State Public Service
Commission, pursuant to the requisition made by the State Government on
C the advice of the High Court of Uttar Pradesh, advertised 93 posts of Civil
Judge (Junior Division) in the Uttar Pradesh Judicial Service. Keeping in
view the provision for reservation mandated by the U.P. Public Service
(Reservation for Physically Handicapped, Dependants of Freedom Fighters
and Ex-Servicemen) Act, 1993 and U.P. Public Service (Reservation for
D Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes) Act, 1994,
certain posts were reserved. To the extent of the percentage of reservation,
as contemplated by the two Acts, mentioned above, there is no controversy.
The controversy centres around the application of percentage as against the
total number of posts.

E The percentages of reservation, as applicable and as was actually applied,
are set out in the following table:

Category Percentage Percentage Number of
(prescribed) worked out to Posts
F reserved
General 50% 46.50 46
Scheduled 21% 19.53 20
Castes
Other 27% 25.11 26
G Backward
Classes
Scheduled 2% 1.86
Tribes
The respondent belongs to general category. 46 selected candidates in
H
STATE v. P.K. TIWARI [LAHOTI. CJ.] 23

'
?.
general category were appointed. There were 3 candidates in the waiting list. A
The respondent was at the top of the waiting list. He was denied appointment.

Feeling aggrieved the respondent filed a writ petition in the High Court
which has been allowed. A writ of mandamus has been issued by the High
Court directing the appellants herein to issue a letter of appointment to the
respondent. The State has filed this appeal by special leave. B
Having heard the learned counsel for the parties we are satisfied that
the appeal is devoid of any merit.

The High Court has found mainly two faults with the process adopted
by the State Government. First, the figure of 46.50 should have been rounded c
off to 47 and not to 46; and secondly, in the category of freedom fighters and
ex-servicemen, total 3 posts have been earmarked as horizontally reserved by
inserting such reservation into general quota of 46 posts which had the effect
of pushing out of selection zone three candidates from merit list of general
category. D
We do not find fault with any of the two reasonings adopted by the
High Court. The rule of rounding off based on logic and common sense is:
' if part is one-half or more, its value shall be increased to one and if part is
less than half then its value shall be ignored. 46.50 should have been rounded
off to 47 and not to 46 as has been done. If 47 candidates would have been E
considered for selection in general category, the respondent was sure to find
a place in the list of selected meritorious candidates and hence entitled to
appointment.

It was submitted by the learned counsel for the appellants that if this
principle of rounding off is to be applied then the percentage of reservation F
in scheduled tribe category would come to 2 by rounding off 1.86, to the
nearest higher value, and in that case a candidate from scheduled tribe category
and not the respondent would be entitled to appointment. We cannot agree.
No candidate in scheduled tribe category has chosen to lay challenge to the
selection. We are also not aware if there is any scheduled tribe category
G
candidate available and qualified for appointment consequent upon his having
participated in the process of selection. This plea of the appellants is without
_,. any foundation and hence does not deserve to be taken note of.
''
There is yet another reason why the judgment of the High Court has to
be maintained. The total number of vacancies was 93. Consequent upon the H
24 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [2005] I S.C.R.

A allocation of reservation and calculation done by the appellants, the number
of reserved seats would be 47, leaving only 46 available for general category
candidates. Meaning thereby, the reservation would exceed 50% which would
be unconstitutional. The total number of reserved seats could not have been
more than 46 out of 93.

B The appeal is devoid of any merit and is dismissed.

R.P. Appeal dismissed.

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