Court No. - 29
Case :- WRIT - A No. - 13288 of 2019 Petitioner :- Sanjeev Kumar Tomar And Another Respondent :- State Of U.P. Abnd 2 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Santosh Kumar Srivastava,Alka Srivastava Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.,Ashish Mishra
Hon'ble Pankaj Mithal,J. Hon'ble Saral Srivastava,J.
Heard Sri Santosh Kumar Srivastava and Sri Ashish Mishra, learned counsel for the parties.
The petitioners are overage as on 01.01.2020 for applying to the U.P. Higher Judicial Service pursuant to the advertisement dated 09.08.2019.
The contention of the petitioners is that the fixation of the cut off date 1.1.2020 for calculating the upper age limit of 45 years is arbitrary as the vacancies sought to be filled up are back-log vacancies.
There is no dispute to the fact that the advertisement inviting applications for the above recruitment has been issued on 9.8.2019.
Rule 12 of the U.P. Higher Judicial Service Rules, 1975 provides the age of 45 years as the maximum age for general category candidates with relaxation of 3 years for the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe candidates with reference to the first day of January next following the year in which the notice inviting applications is published.
Rule 12 of the Rules for the sake of convenience is reproduced herein below:-
"12. Age-A candidate for direct recruitment must have attained the age of 35 years and must not have attained the age of 45 years on the first day of January next following the year in which the notice inviting applications is published;
Provided that the upper age limit shall be higher by three years in case of candidates belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and such other categories as may be notified by the Government from time to time."
In view of the above Rule since notice inviting applications is published in the year 2019, there is no illegality or arbitrariness in fixing the 1st day of January 2020 as the date on which maximum age limit of 45 years is to be determined.
In Hirandra Kumar Vs. High Court of Judicature at Allahabad 2019 SCC On Line SC 254 the Apex Court has observed as under:-
"The legal principles which govern the determination of a cut-off date are well settled. The power to fix a cut-off date or age limit is incidental to the regulatory control which an authority exercises over the selection process. A certain decree of arbitrariness may appear on the face of any cut-off or age limit which is prescribed, since a candidate on the wrong side of the line may stand excluded as a consequence. That, however, is no reason to hold that the cut-off which is prescribed, is arbitrary. In order to declare that a cut-off is arbitrary and ultra vires, it must be of such a nature as to lead to the conclusion that it has bee fixed without any rational basis whatsoever or is manifestly unreasonable so as to lead to a conclusion of a violation of Article 14 of the Constitution."
The Supreme Court further observed that so long as the rules hold the field, candidate in order to be eligible, must fulfil the requirements of age and other conditions which are prescribed by the Rules. It was further observed that essentially the determination of the cut-off dates runs in the realm of policy. The Court in exercise of powers of judicial review does not take over that function for itself. Plainly it is the Rule making authority to discharge the function while framing the Rules.
In the light of the above decision, since the fixation of the cut- off date prescribed in the Rules is within the realm of the policy, it requires no judicial intervention in exercise of extra-ordinary jurisdiction.
The petition accordingly lacks merit and is dismissed. Order Date :- 22.8.2019 Nirmal Sinha