A certificate-verification call creates no right to appointment below the applicable selection cutoff.

The petitioners applied for Special Teacher (Drawing) posts under the Teachers Recruitment Board’s Notification No. 05/2017, claiming vertical reservation based on community and horizontal reservation for Persons Studied in Tamil Medium (PSTM).

The first petitioner belonged to the Scheduled Caste category and the second claimed the MBC/DNC category.

After certificate verification, the petitioners sought appointment against vacancies that included an unfilled Ex-Servicemen vacancy.

The Board stated that, following the revised provisional selection list, the first petitioner had 51 marks and the second 57, while the relevant cut-offs were 63 marks for SC and 62 marks for MBC/DNC; the Board also stated that no candidate with fewer marks than the petitioners had been appointed against the relevant vacancies.

The petition sought a mandamus directing their selection as PSTM candidates.

1. Whether the petitioners were entitled to a mandamus directing their appointment to Drawing Teacher posts under the PSTM reservation, notwithstanding that their marks fell below the relevant category cut-offs.

2. Whether the call letter for certificate verification, including in relation to an unfilled Ex-Servicemen vacancy, gave the petitioners a valid claim to appointment.

The recruitment was governed by Notification No. 05/2017, which provided for vertical and horizontal reservations, including a 20% preferential reservation for PSTM candidates.

The Board’s counter referred to the Tamil Nadu Government Servants (Conditions of Service) Act, 2016 and to Indra Sawhney v. Union of India, 1992 Supp (3) SCC 217, in describing its reservation process.

The Court’s dispositive reasoning was that a candidate whose marks are below the relevant selection cut-off cannot claim appointment by mandamus where higher-scoring candidates were selected and no lower-scoring candidate was appointed to the relevant vacancies.

The Court considered the petitioners’ marks against the revised selection figures: the first petitioner’s 51 marks were below the SC cut-off of 63, and the second petitioner’s 57 marks were below the MBC/DNC cut-off of 62.

It found that the record did not show any candidate with fewer marks than either petitioner being appointed to the relevant communal-turn or Ex-Servicemen vacancy; the unfilled Ex-Servicemen vacancy had been brought into the general pool.

Accordingly, neither the claimed reservation nor the call letter for certificate verification displaced the higher marks of other candidates or established an enforceable right to appointment.

The writ petition was dismissed as devoid of merit, with no order as to costs.