Court No. - 6
Case :- WRIT - A No. - 3204 of 2019 Petitioner :- Sonam Saroj Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 2 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Rakesh Sinha,Sunil,Vibhu Sinha Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.
Hon'ble Yashwant Varma,J.
Heard learned counsel for the petitioner and learned Standing Counsel.
Undisputedly the candidature of the petitioner who had appeared in a 2015 recruitment has not been processed since she declared herself to belong to the OBC category and falling in the Non Creamy Layer. This choice was exercised even though the petitioner belonged to a Scheduled Caste. It is pertinent to note here that at the stage of filling in and uploading of the online application form, caste certificates were not uploaded. Learned counsel has contended that in column 12B the petitioner had given details of a caste certificate which shows that she belongs to the Scheduled Caste category. However the Division Bench of this Court in Special Appeal Defective No. 582 of 2016 (Km. Pooja Yadav Vs. State of U.P. And 2 Others) has held thus:-
"We note that the appellant does not dispute the fact that she had incorrectly filled in the column pertaining the marks obtained by her in the High School Examination in her online application form. She does not appear to have taken any steps for rectification of the said mistake till she was refused permission to participate in the medical tests which were held on 11 July 2016. The respondents assert that the recruitment process initiated for the purposes of filling up as many as 5,800 vacancies is complete and that they are presently engaged in the preparation of the final result. A direction issued at this stage would clearly result in hindering the process of finalization of the result in respect of a recruitment exercise which had commenced in December 2015. Any interference by this Court at this stage may also lead to further complicating the steps presently being taken by the respondents and not brooking a situation where similar complaints and prayers for rectification may come to be made. This Court, therefore, comes to the conclusion that no effective relief can be granted to the appellant at this stage of the proceedings.
The learned Single Judge, we note, has while negativing the contention of the appellant placed reliance upon the judgments rendered by the Division Benches of this Court which have taken the view that a candidate must necessarily bear the consequences of his/her failure to fill up the application form correctly. The principles so enunciated by the Division Bench, would therefore apply to the present facts also.
Learned counsel for the appellant has however sought to place reliance upon a judgement rendered by a Division Bench in Archana Rastogi Vs. State of U.P. And Ors.1. This issue was dealt with by the Division Bench in the following terms:
"From perusal of the column 13 of the advertisement (Annexure-5 to the writ petition), it will be seen that along with the Application Form the candidates were also required to submit their High School and other certificates in support of the declaration of marks made by them in column 10 of the advertisement. Thus, the High School Examination Certificate having been appended to the Application Form it cannot be said that there was no material before the competent authority to verify the actual marks obtained by the appellant-petitioner. In fact, the testimonials in support of the education qualification are, as a matter of fact, required to be filed for purposes of verification of the statement and declaration made in column 10 of the advertisement and, in such circumstances, the High School Certificate of the appellant-petitioner being before the competent authority, even if the appellant had, through human error mentioned her marks obtained in her High School Certificate as 256, the competent authority ought to have verified the same from the High School marks shown in the High School Certificate appended to the appellant's Application Form. Apparently, this was not done and the candidature of the appellant was rejected in a most cursory and arbitrary fashion relying purely upon the declaration made in the Application Form. It may further be noticed that by mentioning her High School marks in the application form as 256 instead of 356 the appellant-petitioner did not stand to gain any ulterior benefits and it is not a case where the appellant-petitioner deliberately tried to mislead the respondents for any personal gain. These facts have not been considered at all by the competent authority while rejecting the representation of the appellant-petitioner. However, as we have already mentioned that since the original testimonials were appended to the application form, the competent authority ought to have given credence to the High School Examination Certificate appended to the Application Form of the appellant rather than ignoring the same and arbitrarily rejecting the candidature of the appellant-petitioner merely on the basis of lesser marks wrongly disclosed in the Application Form."
We are unable to accede to the said submission inasmuch as Archana Rastogi was a case in which the respondents had the benefit of not just the declaration made by the candidate in the application form but also the certificates and testimonials which stood appended thereto. It was in that backdrop that the Division Bench held that it was obligatory upon the competent authority to have verified the marks disclosed by the candidate in the application form from the High School Certificate which stood appended along with the form. The judgment in Archana Rastogi is thus clearly distinguishable. Considering the stage at which the selection process presently stands and for reasons recorded by the learned Single Judge, we do not find any ground warranting interference with the action of the respondents."
Accordingly and following the reasons assigned by the Division Bench of the Court in Km. Pooja Yadav, this Court finds itself unable to issue the writs as prayed for.
Writ petition is dismissed.
Order Date :- 28.2.2019 faraz