Allahabad High Court
Deepak Kumar vs Union Of India And 3 Others on 22 March, 2021
Bench: Ashwani Kumar Mishra
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD
?Court No. - 33
Case :- WRIT - A No. - 2783 of 2021
Petitioner :- Deepak Kumar
Respondent :- Union Of India And 3 Others
Counsel for Petitioner :- Kranti Kiran Pandey
Counsel for Respondent :- A.S.G.I.,Prem Shanker Prasad
Hon'ble Ashwani Kumar Mishra,J.
Petitioner has approached this Court for a direction upon the respondents to permit him to correct his category in Column-7 of the application made for appointment to the post of Constable G.D. in the Central Police Organisation.
Petitioner is required to specify his category in Column-7 of the online application and it is admitted that the petitioner has not claimed any reservation as a Scheduled Caste candidate. His application has been processed in general category. Petitioner has subsequently approached the authority for permitting him to correct his category from unreserved category to Scheduled Caste.
Learned counsel for the petitioner places reliance upon an order passed by the Supreme Court in Civil Appeal No. 3068 of 2020 (Archana Chauhan Vs. The State of Uttar Pradesh and others) as also certain other orders of this Court following the above order.
Petition is opposed by Sri Prem Shanker Prasad, learned counsel for the respondent.
On behalf of the respondent, it is stated that the petitioner since has failed to claim benefit of reservation in the original application he cannot be permitted to change the category at a later stage as thousands of applicants have applied online and any change, at this stage, in one matter would have serious complications in the smooth conduct of recruitment itself.
Before proceeding further, it would be appropriate to take note of the order passed by Supreme Court in Archan Chauhan's Case (Supra), which reads as under:-
"Permission to file SLP is granted.
Leave granted.
This appeal arises out of the Judgment and order dated 30.05.2020 passed by the High Court of Judicature at Allahabad in Writ Appeal No.4070 of 2020.
Though the controversy involved in the present matter is completely distinct from that dealt with in the judgment under appeal, in view of the peculiar facts involved in the matter, we have not considered the matter from any technical perspective and have allowed the appellant liberty of approaching this Court.
While submitting her application to appear in ATRE 2019, the appellant had erroneously given the total marks of her Intermediate Examination as 5000 instead of 500. The marks obtained by her were correctly described as 362. The error on the part of appellant did not, in any way, enure to her advantage but was to her detriment. 2 362 marks out of 500 secured by her would make the percentage of 72.4 whereas 362 out of 5000 would be far lesser than what she had obtained.
The application made by her for appropriate rectification of the application form having been rejected, the appellant has approached this Court.
Leaving aside the technicalities whether the point raised by the appellant arises out of the judgment passed by the High Court in Writ Appeal No.4070 of 2020, the peculiar facts as mentioned above are sufficient to accept the submission made on behalf of the appellant.
We order accordingly and direct the Authorities to rectify the mistake committed by the appellant while submitting her application form after rectification. The candidature of the appellant shall now be considered purely on merit.
With aforesaid observations, the appeal is disposed of. No costs."
The above order of Supreme court was in entirely distinct set of facts and circumstances inasmuch as the marks of the candidate has been incorrectly filled, as instead of showing the marks to be out of 500, it has been shown to be out of 5000. No benefit was to be claimed on the basis of such incorrect marks and, therefore, Supreme Court permitted the petitioner to delete one 'zero' so that the marks are shown out of 500. This order of the Supreme Court is on the facts which are entirely distinct. Petitioner would not be entitled of any parity with the order of the Supreme Court.
Per contra, a Division Bench of this Court in Special Appeal (Def.) No. 577 of 2015 has passed the following order on 25.8.2015:-
"The appellant is aggrieved by the rejection of his writ petition by a learned Single Judge. The relief which was sought in the writ petition was a mandamus for his appointment on the post of Constable in the CRPF. The appellant sought the benefit of being domiciled in a border area but both in paragraph 11 of the writ petition and before the learned Single Judge there was a candid submission that the border district code had not been duly filled up. Once specific instructions were given to candidates, it was obligatory for the candidates to duly comply with the instructions.
In the present case, the authorities cannot be faulted where the mistake was committed by the appellant himself. We find no merit in the special appeal. The special appeal is, accordingly, dismissed. There shall be no order as to costs."
Similarly, another order has been passed in Special Appeal No. 75 of 2013 where the category code of the applicant was wrongly mentioned and the Court denied permission to the applicant to change his category later.
The instructions to candidates were specific inasmuch as they were directed to correctly fill the category and it was made clear that any subsequent correction would not be entertained.
In such circumstances, when the petitioner has not claimed the benefit of reservation at the time of filling of his application form, it would not be appropriate for this Court to permit the petitioner to change such category, particularly when recruitment itself is nearing completion.
Writ petition fails and is accordingly dismissed.
Order Date :- 22.3.2021
n.u.
