Chandigarh, May 24 -- The Punjab and Haryana high court (HC) has quashed the 2019 notification of the Haryana government, which gave an additional 10 marks on the basis of socio- economic criterion for employment in vacancies advertised by the state. The HC bench of justice Sanjeev Prakash and justice Meenakshi I Mehta said, "By carving out artificial class of applicants, who would be entitled to 5 bonus marks (upto 10), the principles enshrined under Article 16 would stand violated. No other reservation except the one as available under Article 15 and 16 of the Constitution can be laid down by any state," the bench said. Lawyers associated with the case said at least five categories of employees' recruitment were under challenge in these set of petitions, including 146 posts of junior system engineers in Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN). The court said that the state would be required to publish a revised result, and on the basis of this result, the candidates who are found to be meritorious would be entitled to appointment against the vacancies in question. Those who still fall in the merit list would continue. However, giving relief to those who would not fall in the merit list and were appointed, the court said they would be allowed to continue against the future posts for which state may conduct an exercise. If no vacancies are available, they will be allowed to continue on ad hoc basis. Their appointments would be treated from the date the vacancies are so made available, the court said, giving a three-month deadline to the government to complete the exercise. The court said that such an exception is being made because the candidates have been working for years now and would be ousted " for no fault" of theirs and such candidates should not be made to suffer. The petitions challenging the criterion were filed in 2021, when recruitment was underway for many posts and the process was completed in most cases. Haryana had defended its move claiming that criterion is followed for greater good of society as a whole and individual interest cannot be considered more important than interest of the society. Under the June 2019 notification, 90 marks were kept for the written exam in the category of Group B posts of teachers, educational supervisor, teacher educator and Group C posts in all departments. As per the notification, upto 10 marks were to be allotted to the candidates under socio- economic criterion. The maximum 5 marks to an applicant who had no one in the family as a regular employee with the state government, maximum five marks to a widow or the first and second child of a person, who died either before he attained the age of 42 years or where the applicant attained the age of 15 years. Five marks were also to be awarded to candidates from nomadic tribes.....