Central Administrative Tribunal - Delhi
M K Rohilla vs Union Public Service Commission on 14 May, 2026
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Item No. 65 O.A. No. 213/2013
Court No. IV
Central Administrative Tribunal
Principal Bench, New Delhi
O.A. No. 213/2013
Reserved on : 30.04.2026
Pronounced on: 14.05.2026
Hon'ble Mr. Manish Garg, Member (J)
Hon'ble Dr. Anand S Khati, Member (A)
Mukesh Kumar Rohila,
Son of Shri Chiranjilal,
Aged about 36 years,
R/o Mohalla Moti Jheel, Ward No. 5, Town Bawal,
Tehsil Bawal, District Rewari, Haryana.
...Applicant
(Applicant in person)
Versus
1. Union Public Service Commission, Dholpur House,
Shahjahan Road, New Delhi, through its Secretary.
2. Union of India through Secretary, Ministry of Home
Affairs and Personnel Grievances, North Block, New
Delhi.
3. Kulwinder Singh, Roll No. 2126, now posted as Assistant District
Attorney (ADA) office of District Attorney (DA), JudicialComplex,
Fatehgarh Sahib, Punjab.
...Respondents
(By Advocates: Mr. Amit Yadav with Mr. Ravinder Agarwal)
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Item No. 65 O.A. No. 213/2013
Court No. IV
ORDER
Hon'ble Mr. Manish Garg, Member (J) :
Highlighting the facts of the case, the applicant, who appeared in person submitted that the present O.A. has been filed seeking directions to the respondents to recommend and appoint him to the post of Senior Public Prosecutor, or alternatively Public Prosecutor, CBI, as he had secured 99 marks out of 200, which was equal to the marks obtained by selected candidate Ravi Kumar, who subsequently declined to join. 1.1. It was contended by the applicant that no minimum qualifying marks for interview or separate components of selection were prescribed in the advertisement and, therefore, the respondents could not introduce such criteria subsequently. The applicant further asserted that being next in merit and the only eligible candidate for the post of Senior Public Prosecutor in the PH category, denial of appointment was arbitrary, discriminatory and contrary to the law laid down by the Hon'ble Supreme Court.
2. Opposing the grant of relief, learned counsel for the respondents argued that the present O.A. is liable to be dismissed as the Union Public Service Commission, being a constitutional body, is empowered to prescribe selection procedures, including minimum qualifying marks in interview, for recruitment conducted by it.
2.1. Learned counsel contended that for recruitment to the posts of Public Prosecutor and Senior Public Prosecutor in CBI, the Commission had fixed minimum qualifying marks separately for the interview for each category, including PH candidates, and since the applicant failed to secure the prescribed minimum marks of 40 in the interview for the post of Senior ANKI ANKIT SAKLANI T 2026.05.
SAK 15 10:39:21 LANI +05'30' 3 Item No. 65 O.A. No. 213/2013 Court No. IV Public Prosecutor, he was rightly excluded from the zone of consideration despite securing higher aggregate marks. The respondents further submitted that the selection process was conducted strictly in accordance with established policy and guidelines applicable uniformly to all candidates, and therefore the applicant has no enforceable right to claim appointment or any relief sought in the O.A.
3. The applicant further submitted that the present matter is a remand case and that the Tribunal had earlier allowed the O.A. vide order dated 02.12.2016 by holding that the applicant had secured higher merit in the combined selection process, i.e., written test and interview, than the selected candidate, and that no statutory rule, notified norm or publicized criteria prescribing minimum qualifying marks in interview had been brought on record by the respondents prior to initiation of the selection process. 3.1. The applicant argued that the Tribunal rightly held that the respondents could not change the "rules of the game" after commencement of recruitment by introducing undisclosed interview cut-off marks through a confidential Circular No. 01/2005, which was neither mentioned in Advertisement No. 51/2010 nor placed in the public domain and was produced for the first time only during review proceedings. The applicant contended that the advertisement specifically provided that "respective weightage of written test and interview shall be decided by the Commission", thereby indicating that final selection was to be based on aggregate marks of written examination and interview, but the respondents never disclosed the actual weightage or any minimum interview benchmark during the recruitment process.
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SAK 15 10:39:21 LANI +05'30' 4 Item No. 65 O.A. No. 213/2013 Court No. IV 3.2. It was further submitted that the stand of UPSC has remained contradictory at different stages regarding fixation of weightage and qualifying marks and that even in other UPSC examinations candidates securing below 40% interview marks had been recommended, thereby showing arbitrary application of standards in the present case. 3.3. The applicant also submitted that the Tribunal, after considering Circular No. 01/2005 even in review proceedings, found no error apparent and rightly rejected the review application. Reliance was placed upon the judgments of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in K. Manjusree v. State of Andhra Pradesh & Others (2008 3SCC 512), Himani Malhotra v. High Court of Delhi & Others (2008 7 SCC 11) and Ramesh Kumar v. High Court of Delhi & Others (2010 3 SCC 104) to contend that undisclosed selection criteria or minimum interview marks introduced after initiation of the selection process are arbitrary, illegal and violative of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution.
4. Heard learned counsel for the respective parties and perused the pleadings available on him.
5. ANALYSIS :
5.1. Vide Order dated 20.03.2025, the following has been recorded by this Tribunal:-
"The present matter culminates from an order passed by the Hon'ble High Court in W.P. (C) No. 2483/2017. The relevant para of the order dated 29.01.2025 read as under :
6. While strictly speaking, the Tribunal cannot be faulted as the aforesaid Circular was not brought to its notice, we deem it appropriate that the Tribunal be directed to have a fresh look at the matter keeping in mind the aforesaid Circular No. 1/2005 dated 4 January 2005.
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7. For this purpose, we remit the matter to the Tribunal.
8. Let both parties appear before the Tribunal on 13 February.
9. We request the Tribunal to not to adjourn the matter on the said date and decide it as expeditiously as possible.
10. As the OA was pending before the Tribunal for four years and this writ petition has been pending before this Court for eight years, we request the Tribunal to dispose of the matter, if possible, within a period of four weeks of the hearing.
11. We clarify that we have not expressed any opinion, one way or the other, on the aforesaid Circular No. 01/2005 or its applicability to the present case. It would be for the Tribunal to take a view as to whether maintain or modify the judgment under challenge, or to take a contrary view.
12. All contentions shall remain open to be urged before the Tribunal.
13. The writ petition stands disposed of in the aforesaid terms.
14. Pending miscellaneous applications, if any, also stand disposed of.
Learned counsel for the respondents states that the said circular has been placed in the RA which is to be brought on record in the OA as well. Be that as it may, the circular NO. 1/2005 dated 04.01.2005 may readily be made available for the purpose of adjudication of the present matter. Even otherwise nothing prevents this Tribunal from going through the records of review or MA.
Since the matter is remanded back, we deem it appropriate to issue fresh notice to the private respondents as well.
Let a fresh notice be issued to the private respondents. Endeavour shall be made to dispose of the OA on the next date of hearing, after service on the private respondents.
List on 01.05.2025."
5.2. It is also pertinent to note that vide order dated 18.09.2018 passed by the Principal Bench of this Tribunal in O.A. No. 2179/2014 filed by Mukesh Kumar Suman, the Tribunal had set aside the selections made by UPSC pursuant to Advertisement No. 51/2013 for the posts of Assistant Labour Commissioner (Central) etc., and directed the UPSC to redo the entire selection process by restricting the marks allocated for interview to 15% without insisting upon any minimum qualifying marks in the interview and thereafter publish the revised results.
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SAK 15 10:39:21 LANI +05'30' 6 Item No. 65 O.A. No. 213/2013 Court No. IV 5.3. The aforesaid order was challenged by the UPSC before the Hon'ble High Court of Delhi in W.P.(C) No. 13150/2018 titled UPSC v. Mukesh Kumar Suman.
5.4. Vide final judgment and order dated 21.01.2020 passed in W.P.(C) No. 13150/2018 and connected matters, the Hon'ble High Court of Delhi examined the applicability and effect of UPSC Circular No. 1/2005 dated 04.01.2005, which stipulated qualifying/cut-off marks in interviews for various categories and had subsequently been placed in the public domain on the official website of UPSC. The Hon'ble High Court further took note of the Annexure appended to the said circular titled "Procedures to be followed by the Interview Boards", particularly para 9.3 thereof relating to "Preparation of Merit List", which reads as under:-
"9.3. The marks awarded to each candidate should be in the scale of 0 to
100. The marks scored by each candidate should be entered in ink and signed by the President of the Board. The scale is used in the following manner to classify the candidates.
Values:
0-19 Very poor 20-39 Below Requirement 40-49 Average/Fair (Not Suitable) 50-59 Good (Suitable) 60-69 Very Good (More than meet requirement) 70 & above Outstanding/Brilliant The "Very Poor" category is extremely rare."
5. Para 10 talks of „cut-off marks‟. Para 10.1 reads as under:-
"10.1 Cut off marks for the Interview for candidates belonging to various categories have been fixed and the same are given as under:-
(a) General Category OBC SC/ST
-50 and above
- 45 and above (on relaxed standards) - 40 and above (on relaxed standards) ANKI ANKIT SAKLANI T 2026.05.
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(b) The relaxation standard being followed in the case of SC/ST/OBC candidates may be extended to PH candidates also. Hence, any PH candidate securing 40% to 49%, be considered for selection on relaxed standard with varying periods of training, if required number of PH candidates are not available."
Below that, it was stated that the "respective weightage of the recruitment test and interviews shall be decided by the Commission." 5.5 Noticeably, in Mukesh Kumar Suman (supra) it has been further observed that:
"17. It appears to this Court that there is a fundamental factual error in the determination of the CAT about the minimum cut-off marks for the interview. In other words, the CAT was in error in stating that the candidates were kept totally in the dark that they had to secure at least 50% marks in the interview. As already noticed hereinbefore, this criteria was placed in the public domain by the UPSC way back in 2005. Further in the advertisement in question, each of the prospective candidates were specifically advised by the note that they were required to go to the website of the UPSC to examine the detailed instructions. If Respondent No. 1 chose note to do so, he then took the risk of participating in the selection without knowing the criteria that was already made known as far as the interview was concerned.
18. Once it is clear that Respondent No.1 did not secure the minimum 50% marks in the interview, he certainly stood disqualified. Having participated in the selection, with the criteria made known, he could not have questioned it only because he did not make the cut. The question of relevant weightage to be given for the written test and interview did not arise as far as he was concerned.
19. What the CAT appears to have missed is that the question of weightage would arise if and only if Respondent No.1 had in fact qualified in the interview. He could then question whether giving 50% weightage for the interview was justified. This is apart from the fact that UPSC placed before the CAT a large number of instances where a 50% weightage is in fact given for the interview/viva voce. Merely because Respondent No.1 secured only 40% in the interview while several others who qualified secured more than 50%, it did not render the marks given to Respondent No.1 in the interview arbitrary or illegal. There was no warrant for the CAT to comment that the UPSC had disregarded the principles laid down by the Supreme Court in that process.
20. This Court is of the view that the CAT exceeded its jurisdiction in setting aside the entire selection made pursuant to the advertisement No. 51/2013 for the aforementioned Labour officer posts and in holding that the UPSC had to redo the entire exercise by restricting the marks to be allocated for the interview to 15% "without insisting on minimum marks therein".
21. The impugned order of the CAT is accordingly hereby set aside. The petition is allowed but in the circumstances, no order as to costs. The pending applications also stand disposed of." ANKI ANKIT SAKLANI T 2026.05.
SAK 15 10:39:21 LANI +05'30' 8 Item No. 65 O.A. No. 213/2013 Court No. IV 5.6. It is pertinent to note that Civil Appeal No(s). 11750-11751/2024 (arising out of Special Leave to Appeal (C) No(s). 9345-9346/2020) titled as "Mukesh Kumar Suman v. UPSC & Ors." arising from the final judgment and order dated 21.01.2020 passed by the Hon'ble High Court of Delhi in W.P.(C) No. 13150/2018 and connected matters, is presently pending consideration before the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India. 5.7. A strong reliance has been placed upon the decision in Tej Prakash Pathak & Ors. Vs. Rajasthan High Court & Ors. (supra), relied upon by the applicant, is only one side of the coin. In Tej Prakash Pathak (supra), it was held that the qualifications must be possessed as prescribed in the Rules or the notification and, in the absence of both, with reference to the last date fixed for receipt of applications, which was a larger issue under consideration therein. It was further observed that the decision in K. Manjusree Vs. State of Andhra Pradesh & Anr. (supra) lays down good law and is not in conflict with the decision in State of Haryana Vs. Subash Chander Marwaha (1973 AIR 2216). While Subash Chander Marwaha (supra) dealt with the right to appointment from the select list, K. Manjusree (supra) concerned the right to be placed in the select list, and therefore both decisions operate in altogether different fields. It was further observed that recruiting bodies, subject to the extant Rules, may devise appropriate procedures for bringing the recruitment process to its logical end, provided such procedure is transparent, non-discriminatory, non-arbitrary and bears a rational nexus with the object sought to be achieved. The extant Rules having statutory force are binding upon the recruiting body both in regard to procedure and eligibility; however, where the Rules are silent or non- ANKI ANKIT SAKLANI T 2026.05.
SAK 15 10:39:21 LANI +05'30' 9 Item No. 65 O.A. No. 213/2013 Court No. IV existent, administrative instructions may supplement the field. It was also reiterated that mere placement in a select list does not confer any indefeasible right to appointment and the State or its instrumentalities may, for bona fide reasons, choose not to fill up vacancies. However, where vacancies exist, the State or its instrumentalities cannot arbitrarily deny appointment to a candidate falling within the zone of consideration in the select list.
5.8 It is well settled in law that a candidate whose name appears in the select list does not acquire any indefeasible right to appointment to the post in the absence of any specific rule entitling such appointment. ( See :Union Territory of Chandigarh v. Dilbagh Singh & Ors., (1993) 1 SCC 154; Mohd. Rashid v. Director, Local Bodies, New Secretariat & Ors. (2020) 2 SCC 582 and State of Manipur & Anr. v. Takhelmayum Khelendro Meitei & Ors., (2019) 3 SCC 331 ).
5.9. We have determined that the broader constitutional question, as referenced in Tej Prakash Pathak v. Rajasthan High Court (supra), does not warrant adjudication in the facts and circumstances of the present case. This is because the imperative need to fill up the vacant posts is unequivocally a matter of public interest. 5.10. In Civil Appeal No. 7906 of 2010 titled Mahesh Chand Bareth & Anr. v. State of Rajasthan & Ors., decided on 08.07.2024, the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India held as under:
"The argument that the guideline was not in public domain was not an argument canvassed either before the learned Single Judge or before the Division Bench. In any event, the contention does not impress us on the facts of the present case. The guideline setting out the selection process was issued before the advertisement and it was applied uniformly and ANKI ANKIT SAKLANI T 2026.05.
SAK 15 10:39:21 LANI +05'30' 10 Item No. 65 O.A. No. 213/2013 Court No. IV across the board to all the applicants. No prejudice has been caused to the applicants even assuming that the guideline was not in the public domain. It was a procedure adopted by the recruiting Authority and endorsed by the Selection Committee. The appellants have had the opportunity to assail the validity of the prescription of the award of bonus marks and as such have had a fora to ventilate their grievance. They have failed in the process. Hence, we cannot jettison the guideline on the alleged ground that it was not in public domain. Equally, since the guidelines of 27.05.2008 preceded the advertisement of 31.05.2008, there is no merit in the argument feebly advanced that the rules of the game had been changed after the match had begun."
5.11. In the present case, the weightage in the interview has also been challenged by the applicant. The applicant was awarded 38 marks in the interview. The applicant claims that in the written examination he was found to be the most meritorious; however, he has been denied appointment on the basis of low marks awarded in the interview. It is submitted that the fixation of interview marks/weightage cannot be said to be arbitrary or discriminatory, as the same is part of the prescribed selection procedure. In any event, the said instructions have not been deviated from by the respondents and are being uniformly applied across all selection processes.
6. CONCLUSION 6.1. Considering the foregoing analysis, we find no defect in the actions undertaken by the respondents. The Original Application is entirely without merit and is therefore dismissed.
6.2. Pending M.A.(s), if any, shall stand disposed of. No costs.
(Dr. Anand S Khati) (Manish Garg)
Member (A) Member (J)
/as/
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