Allahabad High Court
Ramhari Gurjar vs State Of U.P. And 2 Others on 11 June, 2020
Equivalent citations: AIRONLINE 2020 ALL 1304
Author: Vivek Kumar Birla
Bench: Vivek Kumar Birla
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD A.F.R. Court No. - 46 Case :- WRIT - A No. - 4087 of 2020 Petitioner :- Ramhari Gurjar Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 2 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Seemant Singh,Pankaj Kumar Ojha Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C. Hon'ble Vivek Kumar Birla,J.
1. Heard learned counsel for the petitioner and learned Standing Counsel for the State of U.P.
2. Present petition has been filed with the following prayer:-
"Issue writ, order or direction in the nature of Mandamus directing the Secretary, U.P. Basic Education Board, Prayagraj to consider the selection of the petitioner in reference to selection on 69000 posts of Assistant Teacher to be appointed in different Primary Schools of different districts of the State of Uttar Pradesh under Physically Handicapped Quota of OBC Category initiated vide Government Order dated 13.05.2020 issued by Special Secretary, Government of U.P., Lucknow within stipulated period of time as fixed by this Hon'ble Court."
3. The petitioner has appeared in the examination conducted by the State Government being Assistant Teacher Recruitment Examination, 2019 (hereinafter referred to as ATRE-2019). The petitioner had filled up the application form, wherein admittedly he had not disclosed any kind of reservation insofar as his present claim regarding horizontal reservation in the Handicapped Quota is concerned.
4. Learned counsel for the petitioner has admitted this fact that he has not filled up column-10 of the form for appearing in the ATRE-2019 which is regarding Viklangta/Vishesh Arakshan (Handicapped/Special Reservation). Admittedly, by not filing up this column, no reservation was claimed in this category by the petitioner. This fact is admitted to learned counsel for the petitioner. He was issued Admit Card for appearing in the ATRE-2019 (Annexure-2 to the Writ Petition). A perusal of the aforesaid Admit Card clearly discloses the date of Written Examination as 06.01.2019.
5. Learned counsel for the petitioner has further admitted that the application form for appearing in the aforesaid examination was filled up by the petitioner prior to 22nd December, 2018. It is also admitted that the petitioner has obtained Disability Certificate from the Office of Chief Medical Officer, Mathura on 08.07.2019, whereby he has been shown to be suffering from 42% permanent physical impairment due to accidental injury. Clearly, this Certificate was obtained after about 8 months from the date of filing of the application form for appearing in the ATRE-2019, wherein the petitioner has admittedly not claimed any reservation in Handicapped Quota/Special Reservation. This Disability Certificate has been issued after about 6 months from date of appearance in the Written Examination. Pursuant to the issuance of Government Order dated 13.05.2020, recruitment process was started and the Secretary U.P. Basic Education Board, Prayagraj also issued a Notification dated 16.05.2020 allowing the qualified candidates to submit their online application form from 18.05.2020 to 26.05.2020, which is Annexure-8 to the Writ Petition.
6. Submission of learned counsel for the petitioner is that no option is made available to the petitioner for correcting the Special Category/Reservation i.e. physically Handicapped Category in this online application form. It has been categorically stated by learned counsel for the petitioner that in this application form (Annexure-9 to the Writ Petition), columns 1-13 are identical as existed in the application form (which is not annexed with the petition) which was filled by the petitioner at the time of applying for online application for appearing in the ATRE-2019. He further submits that earlier he has admittedly not claimed any reservation in column-10 of the said application form that he is a physically handicapped person or is claiming any special reservation and since there was no modification in the application form, therefore, he has been deprived of making claim regarding Special Reservation/Handicapped Category. He submits that the claim of the petitioner is liable to be considered and he is liable to be permitted to make correction in the form and to make claim regarding his Special Reservation/Handicapped Category. He further submits that there are two stages of the entire exercise and both the stages are entirely different. One is the stage of the Eligibility Test for which he has filled up the online form for appearing before the Examination Authority and second stage is the recruitment process, therefore, he is liable to be permitted to make correction in the form for special reservation being extended to him. Learned counsel for the petitioner has placed reliance on the judgment of Hon'ble Division Bench of this Court dated 06.05.2020 in Special Appeal No.156 of 2019 (Raghvendra Pratap Singh Vs. State of U.P. And others) along with other connected Special Appeals. He has drawn attention to the paragraphs 65-69 of the Judgment. Submission, therefore, is that such benefit is to be extended in the light of the observation made by Hon'ble Division Bench at the stage of recruitment process.
7. Per contra, learned Standing Counsel submits that it is a continuous process and in continuation of process of recruitment, online applications were invited for appearing in the ATRE-2019. He submits that it is only for this purpose and reason, the identical forms were provided and the Quality Point Marks are fixed on the basis of that result of the ATRE-2019 only. Therefore, there can be no doubt that it is a continuous process. He further submits that on the facts of the present case also, the petitioner is not entitled for consideration of his claim. Learned Standing Counsel further submits that the arguments of the petitioner that the petitioner is entitled for correction of the details and claim cannot be considered as it was never claimed earlier and the identical arguments of learned counsel for the petitioner have already been rejected by this Court in Ashutosh Kumar Srivastava Vs. State of U.P. And others.
8. I have considered the rival submissions of the parties and perused the record.
9. On perusal of record, I find that admittedly, the petitioner has filled up his application form for appearing in the Sahayak Adhyapak Bharti Pariksha-2019 i.e. Assistant Teacher Recruitment Examination-2019 (ATRE-2019). He has also appeared in the Written Examination held on 06.01.2019. It is admitted to the learned counsel for the petitioner and also as reflected from perusal of paragraph-2 of the writ petition, the petitioner, although, has claimed reservation in the category of OBC as disclosed in column-9 of the application form as reflected on Annexure-9 at page 83 of the Writ Petition, but column-10 regarding Special Reservation was not filled up. It is admitted to the petitioner that the columns no.1-13 are identical in nature as given at page 83 (after issuance of the Notification dated 16.05.2020) and the details as given which were required to be filled up at the time of applying for ATRE-2019. In column-10 of the application form the petitioner had never claimed Special Reservation under the Handicapped Quota at the time of applying for ATRE-2019. Therefore, it is clear that petitioner has claimed vertical reservation in the OBC category, however, he has not claimed any horizontal reservation of the Physically Handicapped Quota in the selection process of 69,000 posts of Assistant Teacher. It is not in dispute that Quality Point Marks were fixed as per the ATRE-2019. Further, heading of the application form (Annexure-9) at page 83 clearly mentions that this is an application form to be filled up by the candidates who have cleared ATRE-2019. It also mentions the number of candidates i.e. 1,46,060 candidates. The heading is "Parishadiya Prathmik Vidyalyayee 69000 Sahayak Adhyapako Ki Bharti Hetu Aayojit Likhit Pariksha me Uttirna 146060 Abhyarthiyo ke Niyukti Hetu Aavedan Patra ka Print." It, therefore, cannot be disputed that it is a continuous process which started with the filling up application form for appearing in the ATRE-2019 and petitioner had not claimed any horizontal reservation in Handicapped Quota at the time of filing of the application form. Insofar as the case of the petitioner is concerned, it is also pertinent to note that admittedly, he filled up the online application form prior to 22nd December, 2018. He was issued Admit Card which discloses the date of Written Examination as 06.01.2019. However, his Disability Certificate was issued by the Office of Chief Medical Officer, Mathura, U.P. on 08.07.2019, which admittedly, was issued for the first time after about 6 months from the date of his appearance in the Written Examination. Therefore, on merits also, the claim of the petitioner for incorporation of his claim for Special Reservation under the Physically Handicapped Quota cannot be permitted to be agitated at this stage. In Writ-A No.4070 of 2020 (Ashutosh Kumar Srivastava Vs. State of U.P. And others), the similar arguments regarding permitting corrections were considered and prayer for such correction has already been rejected by this Court.
10. In Ashutosh Kumar Srivastava (Supra) also prayer was for granting an opportunity to rectify the incorrect entries made by the petitioners in their online application form of ATRE-2019. It was further prayed that respondents be directed to consider the claim of the petitioner for selection on the basis of original education testimonials. After considering various Hon'ble Division Bench and Hon'ble Supreme Court Judgments rendered in the cases of Km. Archana Rastogi Vs. State of U.P. And others 2012 (3) ADJ 219, Km. Richa Pandey V. Examination Regulatory Authority and Another decided on 18.02.2014, Ram Manohar Yadav V. State of U.P. And 3 others decided on 30.05.2013, Arti Verma V. State of U.P. And 2 others, Kanchan Bala & 172 Ors. V. State of U.P. & 4 Ors., Jai Karan Singh and 52 others Vs. State of U.P. And 4 others and Karnataka Public Service Commission and Ors. Vs. B.M. Vijaya Shankar and Ors. reported in AIR 1992 SC 952, the petition was dismissed. I do not wish to burden my judgment by quoting or refering to them again. However, paragraphs 18 and 20 of Ashutosh Kumar Srivastava (Supra) are quoted as under:-
"18. In so far as the cases cited by the learned counsel for the petitioners are concerned, the same will not help the petitioners since in large number of cases observations were duly made by different Division Benches of this Court that in case any mistake was committed by the candidates during the course of examination, the writ court will not interfere in the matter.
20. The error committed by the candidates cannot be said to be human in nature. The petitioners should have read the instructions that were issued time and again and should have correctly filled the entries relating to the marks obtained by them in their previous examinations. The contention that this was an error committed by the Computer Operator cannot simply be accepted. If the Courts were to accept such a plea of the petitioners, then this would result in a situation where the petitioners would get the benefit of a wrong if the wrong claim went unnoticed and if noticed the petitioners could always turn around and claim that this was a result of a human error. Each candidate necessarily must bear the consequences of his failure to fill up the application form correctly. From perusal of the record, I am of the opinion that the error/errors committed by the petitioners are neither minor nor are human error/errors."
(Emphasis Supplied)
11. Insofar as the observation of Hon'ble Division Bench in Raghuvendra Pratap Singh (Supra) is concerned, the same are of no help to the petitioner as admittedly, the question of claim of Shiksha Mitras to grant benefit of weightage in the 1981 Rules was under consideration and, thus, the said judgment turns on its own facts and is clearly not applicable in this case in the light of the facts of this case and the issue involved herein. Insofar as claiming the benefit of horizontal reservation under the Physically Handicapped Quota is concerned, this column always existed in recruitment process and once it has not been claimed at the initial stage, the petitioner cannot be permitted to claim reservation under the special category, provision for disclosure whereof was provided at the initial stage itself.
12. The petition is devoid of merits and is, accordingly, dismissed.
Order Date :- 11.6.2020 SK Goswami