The single judge bench of the Jharkhand High Court held that the payment of examination fee is not such a criteria upon which candidature can be rejected especially considering the fact that the petitioner has made the payment and it was only due to the transaction failure, the payment could not be credited in the account of the JPSC.
Brief facts
The factual matrix of the case is that the Petitioner took part in the selection process by submitting a fee of Rs 150/-. Then, the Petitioner was awarded 72.10 marks out of 85 marks, and objections were invited from the other candidates including the petitioner. Thereafter, the list of shortlisted candidates for the interview was published. The petitioner’s name was missing although the person scoring less marks has been called for the interview. In such a situation, the petitioner has preferred the writ petition and the court permitted the petitioner to participate. After that, the Petitioner appeared for the interview and came out to be the number one in the category of Scheduled Tribe for the post of Assistant Professor for the Subject - Nagpuri language. The present writ petition is filed in order to direct the Respondent to consider the candidature of the petitioner.
Issue before the court
“whether the petitioner can be appointed or not especially in view of the disqualification as contained in the advertisement itself to the extent that if the examination fee is not paid the application will not be accepted.”
Contentions of the Petitioner
The Petitioner contended that the Petitioner made the payment of Rs 150/- through online payment by using the bank account of SBI of the Petitioner himself. Then, it appears that the message received on the mobile is that if the transaction fails then it will be notified subsequently. However, the payment failed and the Petitioner was unaware of that fact. Later on, when he was allowed to participate in the process, he got no such apprehension also. It was furthermore submitted that if there was any defect, it was the defect in the online payment and for which the petitioner should not be punished as he is a member of Scheduled Tribe.
Contentions of the Respondent
The Respondent contended that the application can’t be considered maintainable if the examination fee is not paid. It was furthermore submitted that an investigation was conducted at the time of issuance of the interview, and during that investigation, the JPSC discovered that the examination fee had not been paid. As a result, the candidate had not been invited for an interview.
The Respondent relied upon the judgments titled State of Tamil Nadu and others Vs G. Hemalathaa and another, and Bedanga Talukdar Vs Saifudaullah Khan and others.
Observations of the Court
The Hon’ble Court observed that all the required documents have been filed by the petitioner. Only non-credit of the examination fee has been made ground, which was also determined at a later stage after the petitioner was given the opportunity to participate in the process.
It was furthermore observed that for members of the Schedule Tribe, the examination fee usually gets waived. Compared to other applicants, they are required to pay a lower examination cost in this instance as well. The petitioner has paid the examination fee; the money could not be credited to the JPSC account only because of a transaction failure. Therefore, payment of the fee is not a criterion that may be used to reject a candidature.
Even that fact was not discovered until the JPSC and the petitioner conducted a thorough investigation at the time the interview letter was sent.
Based on these considerations, the court was of the view that the petitioner is entitled for appointment and accordingly, the JPSC is mandated to do the needful.
The decision of the court
With the above direction, the court allowed the writ petition.
Case title: Manoj Kachhap Vs The State of Jharkhand
Coram: Hon’ble Mr. Justice Rajesh Kumar
Case No.: W.P.(C) No. 4935 of 2021
Advocate for the Petitioner: Mr. Sabyasanchi, Advocate
Advocate for the State: Mr. Sudhanshu Kumar Singh, A.C. to S.C.-III
Advocate for the JPSC: Mr. Sanjoy Piprawall, Advocate
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