Court No. - 6
Case :- WRIT - A No. - 24794 of 2018 Petitioner :- Khevendra Singh Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 3 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Jata Shankar Pandey Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.
Hon'ble Yashwant Varma,J.
Heard learned counsel for the petitioner and learned standing counsel for the State - respondents.
This petition has been preferred seeking issuance of a direction for constitution of a fresh medical board for examination of the petitioner. Undisputedly, the petitioner was declared unfit by the Board constituted by the respondents. Aggrieved by the said decision, the petitioner had preferred an appeal before the Regional Board, which reiterated the opinion formed by the Regional Medical Board. The sole ground, on which the prayers made in this petition, rests is the document appended as Annexure No. 5, on the strength of which the petitioner claims that he is medically fit.
It is relevant to note that there are no allegations of manifest arbitrariness or mala fides alleged against the medical board. This Court also bears in mind the following relevant observations as made by a Division Bench of this Court in State of Uttar Pradesh & 2 Others Vs. Rahul, 2016(3) ADJ 327:-
"This Court in previous decisions has emphasized the need to preserve the sanctity of the recruitment process and of the care and circumspection which has to be exercised before the findings of an expert medical Board constituted by the authorities are interfered with in writ proceedings. Undoubtedly, the powers of the Court under Article 226 of the Constitution are wide enough to issue such a direction in an appropriate case. However, such directions cannot be issued merely on the basis of a request made in that behalf before the Court.
In a recent judgment of this Court in Union of India through Ministry of Railways vs. Parul Punia2, this Court has emphasized the need for caution when candidates seek to question the correctness of the findings of a medical Board constituted under the recruitment process adopted by the authorities of the State, on the basis of a report obtained by the candidates. The Division Bench observed as follows:
"...In a number of such cases, candidates who have been invalidated on medical grounds produce expert opinions of their own to cast doubt on the credibility of the official medical report constituted by the recruiting body. In such cases, the Court may not have any means of verifying the actual identity of the person who was examined in the course of the medical examination by the Doctor whose report is relied upon by the candidate. Hence, even though the authority whose medical report was produced by the candidate may be an expert, the basic issue as to whether the identity of the candidate who was examined, matches the identity of the person who has applied for the post is a serious issue which cannot be ignored..."
Dealing with the parameters of the writ jurisdiction in such cases, the Division Bench observed thus:
"...Undoubtedly, in a suitable case, the powers of the Court under Article 226 are wide enough to comprehend the issuance of appropriate directions but such powers have to be wielded with caution and circumspection. Matters relating to the medical evaluation of candidates in the recruitment process involve expert determination. The Court should be cautious in supplanting the process adopted by the recruiting agency and substituting it by a Court mandated medical evaluation. In the present case the proper course would have been to permit an evaluation of the medical fitness of the respondent by a review medical board provided by the appellants. Otherwise, the recruitment process can be derailed if such requests of candidates who are not found to be medically fit for reassessment on the basis of procedures other than those which are envisaged by the recruiting authority are allowed. This would ordinarily be impermissible."
In the present case, we find absolutely no reasonable basis for the respondent to have invoked the jurisdiction under Article 226 for constituting a separate medical Board under the authority of the Principal of Motilal Nehru Medical College, Allahabad. In the interim order of the learned Single Judge, there was no safeguard to the effect that the medical examination would take place in the presence of a representative of the State to at least ensure that the issue of identity did not arise. But that apart, more fundamentally, the objection to the entire procedure which has been followed is that without any reasonable basis or justification, the recruitment process and the procedures which have been laid down have been supplanted under a judicial direction. This, in our view, would be impermissible."
Accordingly and bearing in mind the principles laid down in State of Uttar Pradesh & 2 Others Vs. Rahul, the writ petition is dismissed.
Order Date :- 26.11.2018 Amit Mishra