New Delhi, Mar 16 (IANS): The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to entertain a plea against the Uttar Pradesh government's decision to shift candidates, selected for posts of police constable, under the reserved category to the open category.

Observing that the state government and its functionaries were obliged to go strictly in order of merit and apply the principle of reservation, a bench headed by Justice U.U. Lalit said: "With the availability of 3,295 additional posts, in the re-working exercise, if the candidates who were already selected against reserved posts were entitled to be considered against open category posts, that exercise cannot be termed as illegal or invalid on any count."

The bench, also comprising Justices S. Ravindra Bhat and Hrishikesh Roy, added these 3,295 posts in the UP Police, the Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) and Fire Service were part of the same selection process initiated in 2013 for filling up 41,610 posts and as such, the adjustment was rightly done by the state.

Dismissing the plea filed by few general category candidates including Pramod Kumar Singh, it held there was nothing wrong with the selection process and shifting to general category the candidates of reserved class in appointment of 3,295 constables.

The top court said that the selection in respect of 3,295 posts was undertaken in accordance with the directions issued by it in Ashish Kumar Yadav and Ors. vs. State of Uttar Pradesh and others.

The petitioners had urged the top court to issue to the direction to the state government to consider them for appointment to the post of PAC constable and fireman seats meant for general category male candidates against posts which remained unfilled till date.

The petitioners said there are 958 seats where candidates who made it in original select list in reserved category in constable (civil) were wrongly shifted to open category on different cadre i.e. PAC constable and fireman without actually changing their cadre as they are all working on the said post (constable (civil)) for last 3 years.

"Had the aforesaid 958 seats were not wrongly overlapped, then the petitioners would have made their place in the list published on 11.11.2019 by the Board," the petitioners said.