Central Administrative Tribunal - Delhi
Pinki Devi vs Govt. Of Nctd on 14 January, 2026
1 OA No. 457/2019
Item 31 (C-3)
CENTRAL ADMINISTRATIVE TRIBUNAL
PRINCIPAL BENCH, NEW DELHI
O.A No. 457/2019 With M.A No. 526/2019
Reserved on : 06.01.2026
Pronounced on : 14.01.2026
Hon'ble Ms. Harvinder Kaur Oberoi, Member (J)
Hon'ble Dr. Sumeet Jerath, Member (A)
Pinki Devi, Age 39 years (PGT History) (Gp. B)
W/o Sh. Surender Kumar,
R/o. RZ-18, Gali No. 2, Block-B,
Ugarsen Park, Nangloi Road,
Najafgarh, New Delhi-43. ...Applicant
(By Advocate : Mr. Yashpal Rangi)
Versus
Govt. of NCT of Delhi & Ors, through its:
1. Chief Secretary,
Govt. of NCT of Delhi
Delhi Secretariat,
I.P. Estate, New Delhi-110002.
2. Director of Education,
Directorate of Education,
Govt. of NCT of Delhi,
Old Secretariat Building,
Civil Lines, Delhi-110054.
3. Delhi Subordinate Services Selection Board
Through its Secretary,
FC-18, Institutional Area,
Karkardooma, Delhi-110 092. ...Respondents
(By Advocate : Mr. Tanmay Vashistha for Mr. Amit Anand)
Digitally signed by
MAYA BAHADUR
MAYA BAHADUR
SINGH TARAGI
SINGH TARAGI
2 OA No. 457/2019
Item 31 (C-3)
ORDER
Hon'ble Dr. Sumeet Jerath :
The instant OA has been filed by the applicant under Section 19 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985, seeking the following reliefs:-
"8.(i) Quash and set aside the impugned notice no. 760 dated 25/1/2019 to the extent candidature of the applicant has been rejected.
(ii) Declare the action of respondents in not evaluating the OMR sheet and not providing copy of OMR sheet to applicant as arbitrary and illegal; and
iii) Direct the respondents to evaluate the OMR sheet of the applicant and if she found scored more marks than the last selected candidate in OBC category then she may be appointed to the post of PGT (History) Female (Post Code 139/12) in preference to the candidates secured less marks than her with all consequential benefits including seniority and arrears; and
(iv) pass such other and further orders which their lordships of this Hon'ble Tribunal deem fit and proper in the existing facts and circumstances of the case."
2. The factual matrix of the case as per the counsel of the applicant is that pursuant to the advertisement issued by the DSSSB to fill up various posts including that of PGT (History) Female bearing Post Code No. 139/12, the applicant applied for the same under OBC category. She appeared in Tier-I examination where she qualified with 78.75 marks as apparent from result dated 03.06.2015 vide which she was placed at fourth position in the merit list of OBC Digitally signed by MAYA BAHADUR MAYA BAHADUR SINGH TARAGI SINGH TARAGI 3 OA No. 457/2019 Item 31 (C-3) candidates. However, the result of Tier-II examination did not reflect her marks. Rather, it showed 'No marks' against her Roll No. - 26004187. Aggrieved, she preferred a representation dated 27.06.2016 to the DSSSB. However, ignoring her representation the respondents declared final result vide Result Notice No. 484 whereby two posts of OBC category were kept vacant for clarification of passing PG qualification and further two posts were kept vacant for those candidates who had represented against the said result including the applicant. Thereafter result was declared twice on 12.06.2017 and 15.11.2017 wherein also the representation of the applicant was shown as pending. Apart from representations, the applicant also made various RTI applications seeking information about her result as also filed complaints/appeals to CIC which are pending consideration. However, after a long span of about 2½ years DSSSB rejected her candidature on the ground she had wrongly bubbled her Roll Number in OMR sheet and for that reason her OMR sheet/Answer Sheet could not be evaluated. Counsel for the applicant highlighted that now the DSSSB has again declared one more candidate as selected under OBC category. Thus as of now, 17 posts out of 18 posts of OBC category had been filled and only one post is lying vacant for one Ms. Suman whose candidature is pending for obtaining documents. If that post is also gone then the applicant would suffer irreparable loss. Hence the applicant has knocked the doors of the Tribunal.
Digitally signed by
MAYA BAHADUR MAYA BAHADUR SINGH TARAGI SINGH TARAGI 4 OA No. 457/2019 Item 31 (C-3)
3. The counsel of the applicant based his arguments on various grounds which are quoted below :-
"(A) Respondents have acted in arbitrary, unjustified and illegal manner.
(B) Respondents ought not to have rejected the candidature of applicant on non-essential and not substantive mistake, if any.
(C) Enough material was available with the respondents to evaluate the performance of applicant. It is well known fact that objective of conducting the competitive examination is to identify the most meritorious candidates and not to reject the candidature on trivial grounds.
(D) Applicant's case is squarely covered by the judgment of this Hon'ble Tribunal passed in OA No. 215/2017. This Hon'ble Tribunal after considering catena of judgments held as follows :-
"The mistakes or lapses committed by them were non- essential and not substantive Cancellation of their candidature for these minor lapses was unwarranted. Enough material was available with the respondents to evaluate them despite the lapses committed by the applicants. If candidates are rejected on these non-essential grounds than the very objective of conducting the competitive examination namely, to identify the most meritorious candidates for filing up the available posts would be defeated.
We therefore, find merit in the submission of the applicants and allow these OAs. We direct the respondents to process the candidature of the applicants herein in case they are not ineligible for any other reason." The said judgment has been upheld by Hon'ble High Court of Delhi in WP(C) No. 4829/2017."
(E) That Co-ordinate Bench of this Hon'ble Tribunal in OA No. 4558/2014 has held that applications or candidatures or selections normally shall not be rejected by the authorities, basing on the minor mistakes committed by the youngsters in filing up the Digitally signed by MAYA BAHADUR MAYA BAHADUR SINGH TARAGI SINGH TARAGI 5 OA No. 457/2019 Item 31 (C-3) application forms or in the examinations, if otherwise, they establish their identity and that they are qualified and eligible for consideration of their cases by furnishing the documents in proof of the same.
(F) Respondents failed to assign a valid and good reason for not taking decision for more than 2% years on a pity issue. (G) Respondents have denied right of consideration for appointment to the applicant by rejecting her candidature on immaterial ground. (H) Respondents nowhere stated that answer sheet of the applicant could not be evaluated due to wrongly bubbled of her Roll Number in OMR sheet.
(1) Respondents have not provided the copy of OMR sheet to the applicant till date in spite of her repeated requests. It raised a genuine doubt that there may fault on part of DSSSB itself. It is quite possible that some fishy has been done on part of DSSSB officials.
(J) Respondents being model employer could not take such long time in deciding the representation related to a pity issue."
4. To put more strength to his arguments, counsel for the applicant relied upon a decision of Hon'ble Delhi High Court in W.P(C) No. 17595/2024 and batch dated 21.08.2025 in DSSSB & Anr. vs. Niharika Puhan wherein the impugned order passed by this Tribunal vide OA No. 1832/2023 was set aside with a direction to issue an appointment letter to the applicant therein. The counsel further relied upon decision of Hon'ble Delhi High Court in W.P (C) No. 4829/2017 dated 10.08.2017 in UOI & Ors. vs. Sumit Kumar. He Digitally signed by MAYA BAHADUR MAYA BAHADUR SINGH TARAGI SINGH TARAGI 6 OA No. 457/2019 Item 31 (C-3) further relied upon orders of this Tribunal in OA No. 215/2017 and batch dated 21.2.2017 in Sumit Kumar vs. UOI & Ors. as well as OA No. 4558/2014 dated 24.02.2016 in Ms. Suman vs. GNCTD & Ors.
5. Opposing the OA, counsel for the respondents submitted that the respondents uploaded the answer keys of Tier-II exam on their website and called for the objections thereto if any. Thereafter, final answer key was uploaded on 21.12.2015 whereby answers of 28 questions were changed and one question was deleted. With regard to the applicant's contention regarding non-evaluation of her OMR sheet the counsel submitted that the answer sheets/OMR sheets are checked through scanner automatically without human intervention. Moreover, a candidate is identified through his/her Roll No. bubbled by him/her which if found incorrect disables the computer to detect the identity of a candidate. Thus, her answer sheet could not be evaluated due to wrong bubbling of her roll number. He added that clear instructions were given to the candidates with regard to filling of OMR sheet correctly which the applicant failed to do. The respondents denied the applicant's contention that her representation was not examined as the same was examined and accordingly a vacancy under OBC category was kept pending vide Result Notice dated 15.03.2017. Moreover, information sought by the applicant was also provided to the applicant as per available records and Digitally signed by MAYA BAHADUR MAYA BAHADUR SINGH TARAGI SINGH TARAGI 7 OA No. 457/2019 Item 31 (C-3) policies of the Board. According to the counsel, the candidates were instructed thrice to bubble/shade their roll no. carefully which is apparent from the Part B-C of Para 5 of his reply. According to the counsel copy of the OMR sheet was not provided to the applicant as per the policy of the Board as well as in view of the Hon'ble Apex Court judgment in UPSC vs. Agnesh Kumar & Ors. However, the same was produced before the Court which is taken on record. Lastly, he argued that the representation of the applicant was considered and on receipt of report from the concerned branch, her candidature was rejected on 25.01.2019.
6. To support his arguments, the counsel for the respondents handed across the Bar copy of a decision of the Hon'ble Delhi High Court in WA No. 1369/2018 and batch dated 19.07.2021. The excerpts of which are as under :-
"7. The aforesaid decision makes it amply clear that the High Court could not have overlooked the mandatory nature of instructions issued by the Commission that would be binding on all candidates and that a hard case does not make a good law. In other words, sympathy or empathy for a candidate who has contravened the instructions cannot translate into a positive order in his/her favour. Once an instruction has been issued by the Commission, then the same will have to be treated as mandatory in nature and require strict compliance, without any exception.
xxx xxx xxx
15. The submission made by learned counsel for the petitioners that the errors committed by the petitioners of wrong bubbling/double bubbling and/or absence of bubbling in the hall ticket numbers are bona fide errors and can be easily corrected, is untenable. Tough as it may sound, Digitally signed by MAYA BAHADUR MAYA BAHADUR SINGH TARAGI SINGH TARAGI 8 OA No. 457/2019 Item 31 (C-3) compassion or generosity of the heart has no place in public examinations conducted by an Examination Regulatory Authority like the TSPSC. The petitioners ought to have carefully read the instructions issued by the TSPSC and correctly filled in their personal details, hall ticket number etc., in the OMR sheet, as mandated. Once it is admitted that the entries made were inaccurate due to which the answer sheets of the petitioners were not evaluated and in view of the fact that evaluation in such cases is an electronic process undertaken through scanners, with no human intervention, we are of the opinion that no directions can be issued to the TSPSC to conduct manual scanning of the weeded out answer scrips to collate and declare the results of the petitioners."
He also handed over a copy of our own order in OA No. 3898/2017 dated 08.08.2024 in Anit Mann vs. GNCTD & Anr. which was also dismissed giving the following ratio :-
"6. We are, therefore of the considered opinion that in the instant case, the balance of convenience clearly lies with the respondents. If the applicant was so careless as to not even record his roll no. correctly by darkening the appropriate circles below correctly then, obviously, there is no foundation and the whole edifice is bound to fall. Rightly so, the computer by using its Artificial Intelligence did not proceed further to evaluate the answer sheet of the applicant once in the first place it could not read the roll no. of the applicant. The instant OA lacks merit and the same deserves to be dismissed and is accordingly dismissed with no order as to costs."
7. Heard both the parties, perused the material on record, and considered the judgments and decisions of Hon'ble Apex Court, High Court and Tribunal. We have observed that the instructions in the question booklet clearly state that proper bubbling of the Roll Number is mandatory. Specifically Sl. No. 5 of the Question Booklet clearly shows that :-
Digitally signed by
MAYA BAHADUR MAYA BAHADUR SINGH TARAGI SINGH TARAGI 9 OA No. 457/2019 Item 31 (C-3) "OMR Answer Sheet is enclosed as Annexure- R-2 in this booklet. You must complete the details of Roll Number. Question Booklet No. etc. on the Answer Sheet and Answered Sheet No. on the space provided above in this question Booklet, before you actually start answering the questions, failing which your answer sheet will not be evaluated and you will be awarded ZERO marks."
It is also submitted that at Serial No. 16 of Question booklet the "A machine will read the coded information in the OMR Answer Sheet. In case the information is incomplete/ different form the information given in the application form, the candidature of such candidate will be treated as cancelled. Copy of question booklet is attached herewith as Annexure R-1.
Further, instruction mentioned at Serial No. 6 of back side of OMR answer sheet that "the appropriate circle should be shaded for roll number, gender, community, question booklet No., Booklet Series and preference of Post Codes applied for etc. this should be done carefully because only the shaded circle are scanned."
8. The respondents produced the OMR Sheet of the applicant - Pinki Devi in the Court where we were appalled to note that the applicant being very careless, casual and cavalier had written her Roll No. as '20064187' - wrongly instead of the correct Roll No. '26004187' that was assigned to her. A Xerox copy of this OMR sheet is reproduced below :-
Digitally signed by
MAYA BAHADUR MAYA BAHADUR SINGH TARAGI SINGH TARAGI 10 OA No. 457/2019 Item 31 (C-3) Given the above point of fact and point of law made abundantly clear in the judgment of Hon'ble Delhi High Court in WA No. 1369/2018 Digitally signed by MAYA BAHADUR MAYA BAHADUR SINGH TARAGI SINGH TARAGI 11 OA No. 457/2019 Item 31 (C-3) and batch dated 19.07.2021 (supra) :-
"..................that a hard case does not make a good law. In other words, sympathy or empathy for a candidate who has contravened the instructions cannot translate into a positive order in his/her favour. Once an instruction has been issued by the Commission, then the same will have to be treated as mandatory in nature and require strict compliance, without any exception."
9. We are of the considered opinion that the balance of convenience in the instant OA lies with the respondents. If the applicant was not careful and meticulous enough to even write her Roll No. correctly in the OMR sheet then obviously the blame lies fairly and squarely at her doorstep. With an incorrect Roll No., the very foundation is defective and the whole edifice is bound to fall. Rightly so, the computer by using its artificial intelligence did not proceed further to evaluate the answer sheet of the applicant. The instant OA therefore lacks merit; deserves to be dismissed and is accordingly dismissed.
Pending M.As if any are also disposed of accordingly. However, there shall be no order as to costs.
(Dr. Sumeet Jerath) (Harvinder Kaur Oberoi)
Member (A) Member (J)
/Mbt/
Digitally signed by
MAYA BAHADUR
MAYA BAHADUR
SINGH TARAGI
SINGH TARAGI