Delhi High Court
Prashant Pranav & Ors. vs Union Of India & Ors. on 26 December, 2017
* IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI
Date of decision: 26th December, 2017
+ W.P.(C) 11598/2017
PRASHANT PRANAV & ORS. ..... Petitioners
Through: Mr.Gaurav Gupta and
Mr.Jaspal Singh, Advs.
versus
UNION OF INDIA & ORS. ..... Respondents
Through: Ms.Jyoti Dutt Shara, Adv. for
R-1.
Mr.Rakesh Kumar Khanna, Sr.
Adv. with Mr.Anil Kumar
Sangal, Mr.Siddharth Sangal
and Mr.Abhay Kumar Tayal,
Advs. for R-2 and 3.
CORAM:
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE NAVIN CHAWLA
NAVIN CHAWLA, J. (Oral)
CM 47234/2017 (exemption)
Exemption allowed subject to all just exceptions.
WP(C) 11598/2017 & CM 47233/2017
1. The present petition has been filed by the petitioners
challenging the recruitment process of " Probationary Officers" in the
W.P. (C) 11598/2017 Page 1
State Bank of India vide advertisement No CRPD/PO/2016-17/19
dated 6th February, 2017.
2. The petitioners, drawing a reference to the following clauses of
the advertisement, submit that the advertisement clearly stipulated that
each candidate must qualify in each of the test in the "Objective Test"
category as also for the "Descriptive Test" before being considered
eligible for appointment:
"Phase-II: Main Examination:
Main Examination will consist of Objective Tests for 200
marks and Descriptive Test for 50 marks. Both the
Objective and Descriptive Tests will be online. Candidates
will have to answer Descriptive test by typing on the
computer. Immediately after completion of Objective Test,
Descriptive Test will be administered.
Objective Test: The objective test of 3 hours duration
consist of 4 Sections for total 200 marks. The objective test
will have separate timing for every section. The candidates
are required to qualify in each of the Tests by securing
passing marks, to be decided by the Bank.
SL. Name of Test No. of Marks Duration
Questions
1. Reasoning & 45 60 60 minutes
Computer Aptitude
2. Data Analysis & 35 60 45 minutes
W.P. (C) 11598/2017 Page 2
Interpretation
3. General/Economy/ 40 40 35 minutes
Banking Awareness
4. English Language 35 40 40 minutes
Total 155 200 3 hours
Descriptive Test: The Descriptive Test of 30 minutes
duration with 50 marks will be a Test of English Language
(Letter Writing & Essay). The candidates are required to
qualify in the Descriptive Test by securing passing marks,
to be decided by the Bank.
Descriptive Test paper of only those candidates will be
evaluated who have scored qualifying marks in the
Objective Tests and are placed adequately high as per total
marks in objective test.
Penalty for Wrong Answers (Applicable to both -
Preliminary and Main examination)
There will be penalty for wrong answers marked in the
Objective Tests. For each question for which a wrong
answer has been given by the candidate one fourth of the
marks assigned to that question will be deducted as penalty
to arrive at corrected score. If a question is left blank, i.e.
no answer is marked by the candidate, there will be no
penalty for that question." (Emphasis Supplied)
3. It is the case of the petitioners that candidates who secured 00
(zero) in various subjects/test in the "Objective Test" have been
W.P. (C) 11598/2017 Page 3
considered for appointment by the respondent Nos. 2 & 3, thereby
vitiating the entire selection process. The petitioners further submit
that even if the respondent felt that there was a need for relaxation in
the selection norms, the same could not have been so drastically
changed so as to do away with the entire pre-condition of qualifying in
the subjects. It is submitted that changing the selection criteria after
initiation of selection process was not maintainable and the same
would vitiate the entire selection process.
4. This Court, while issuing notice in the petition vide order dated
22nd December, 2017, had called upon respondent Nos. 2 & 3 to
produce relevant record/data to show so as to how many candidates
would qualify if the sectional cut off is fixed and how many would
qualify if aggregate is taken.
5. The learned senior counsel for respondent Nos. 2 and 3 has
handed over a Note initiated by the General Manger, SBI, which it is
alleged, was duly approved by the Deputy Managing Director and the
Chief General Manager (HR) of the Central Human Resource
Committee (CHRC) of respondent No. 2 and records that the earlier
criteria followed by the respondent No. 2 was to have a cut off of 25%
marks for the General Category in each subject and 40% in the
overall. The same was 20% in each subject and 35% overall for the
Reserved Category. In case sufficient number of candidates did not
qualify the tests, a relaxation of up to maximum of 5% was also
prescribed. In the current selection process, however, applying the
above mentioned selection criteria only 138 candidates were found
W.P. (C) 11598/2017 Page 4
eligible against the vacancy of 2313. As the general criteria is to have
three times the number of vacancies to be called for interview, the
question of relaxation was discussed with Institute of Banking
Personnel Selection (IBPS) and several scenario were analyzed. It
was eventually considered not to stipulate any qualifying marks in
each individual objective test for all categories and reduce the
aggregate qualifying marks by 10% for each category. It was only
upon adopting such relaxed norms that the respondent No. 2 could
finally get a pool of 6327 candidates for the purposes of selection. It
is further pointed out by the learned senior counsel for respondent
Nos. 2 & 3 that even the petitioners were beneficiaries of such relaxed
norms as otherwise, they would not have qualified for interview if the
respondent Nos. 2 & 3 had insisted upon the norms that were earlier
fixed.
6. I have considered the submissions made by the counsel for the
parties. It is to be noted that the advertisement did not prescribe any
minimum qualifying marks for each of the subjects/tests in the
"Objective Test"or "Descriptive Test". The advertisement merely
mentioned that the candidates have to qualify in each of the test by
securing passing marks "to be decided by the Bank". Such decision at
a later stage necessarily meant that the respondent No. 2 wanted to
retain a discretion for itself to determine the qualifying marks based
on the overall result of the examination and keeping in mind the
criteria that around 3 times the number of vacancies have to be called
for the purposes of interview.
W.P. (C) 11598/2017 Page 5
7. In the present case, it is evident from the Note initiated by the
General Manager of respondent No. 2 and as approved by the CHRC
that, leave alone adequate number of candidates, even a minimal
number of candidates could not have been qualified as per the earlier
followed norms of respondent No. 2. This necessarily required the
respondent No. 2 to relax the norms or to re-initiate the entire
selection process, which would have resulted in delay and may not
have been administratively feasible for respondent No. 2. Petitioners
were also beneficiaries of such decision, though may have eventually
failed to make the selection.
8. Once it is seen that the advertisement did not prescribe any
minimum qualifying marks and the decision which has been taken by
the respondent No. 2 takes relevant criteria into account and no mala
fide in that decision can be attributed to respondent Nos. 2 and 3, I
find no substance in the challenge.
9. It is correct that once the selection process is initiated, normally,
the recruiting authority is not allowed to change the selection criteria,
however, the said principle would have no application to the facts of
the present case as no such criteria was, in fact, stated in the
advertisement itself .
10. Though the learned counsel for the petitioners made attempt to
attract some mala fide on respondent No. 2 by alleging that candidates
securing lower marks in such Objective and Descriptive test have been
granted higher marks in the interview, I find the same was not the
basis of filing of the present petition.
W.P. (C) 11598/2017 Page 6
11. In view of the above, I find no merit in the present petition. The
same is accordingly dismissed with no order as to costs.
12. Dasti under the signature of the Court Master.
NAVIN CHAWLA
(VACATION JUDGE)
DECEMBER 26, 2017/Nk
W.P. (C) 11598/2017 Page 7
