Similarly placed petitioners who approached the court contemporaneously are entitled to the same relief.

The petitioners challenged the selection of respondents 4 to 13 as Computer Instructors under the Backward Classes priority quota, alleging that the selections exceeded the quota prescribed by Advertisement No. 7 of 2014 and encroached on the non-priority quota.

They relied on a Division Bench judgment dated 6 September 2024 concerning the same recruitment issue. The State also submitted that the issue was covered by that judgment.

The present petitions had been filed at the same time as the petitions considered in the earlier batch but were not listed with them.

Whether the petitioners, who were omitted from the earlier batch despite having filed their petitions at the same time, were entitled to the relief granted by the Division Bench in the related recruitment cases.

Whether the recruitment process should be set aside, or whether relief should instead be limited to consideration of the petitioners’ candidature.

That judgment held that sponsoring candidates based on the serial numbers used to categorise priority-quota candidates was erroneous.

It declined to set aside the recruitment of 652 Computer Instructors, given their lengthy service, and instead directed the authorities to treat the affected petitioners’ candidature as validly sponsored, with appropriate seniority, and to consider and appoint them if otherwise qualified.

The Court found the petitioners similarly placed to those who had obtained relief in the Division Bench judgment.

Although that judgment had confined its relief to the persons before it, the present petitioners had approached the Court at the same time and were omitted from the earlier batch for reasons not attributable to them. The Court therefore extended the same relief, rather than setting aside the wider recruitment process.

The respondents were directed to consider the petitioners’ candidature as validly sponsored, with appropriate seniority, and to consider appointing them if they were otherwise qualified. No costs were awarded, and the connected miscellaneous petitions were closed.