Allahabad High Court
Satveer Singh vs Union Of India And 2 Others on 13 September, 2019
Author: Rohit Ranjan Agarwal
Bench: Rohit Ranjan Agarwal
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD Court No. - 16 Case :- WRIT - A No. - 30855 of 2017 Petitioner :- Satveer Singh Respondent :- Union Of India And 2 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Vinod Kumar Mishra,Sudhanshu Pandey Counsel for Respondent :- A.S.G.I.,Rajnish Kumar Rai,Satish Kumar Rai Hon'ble Rohit Ranjan Agarwal,J.
1. Heard Sri Sudhanshu Pandey, learned counsel for the petitioner and Sri Rajnish Kumar Rai, learned counsel for the respondents.
2. Present petition has been filed impugning the order dated 19.06.2017 passed by respondent no. 3. Brief facts of the case are that notice was published by Government of India, Ministry of Railway inviting application for filling up post of constable in RPF/ RPSF in the month of February, 2011.
3. Recruitment was to be made on the basis of performance in written examination, physical efficiency test, physical measurement, viva-voce test, bonus marks if any obtained, document verification.
4. Petitioner had requisite qualification and applied for appointment on the said post. Petitioner participated in written examination and was declared successful, and was called for physical efficiency test, and he successfully qualified the same and thereafter, appeared for physical measurement, which he also qualified and thereafter, appeared for viva-voce test and document verification and the same was successfully carried out. On 04.06.2014, medical examination was also conducted and petitioner was found fit. On 17.09.2014, the final result was uploaded on the website of the North Eastern Railway but roll number of the petitioner was not in the list of successful candidates in spite of fact that he was finally selected candidate, as he had qualified each and every step of selection process as well as qualified the medical test.
5. As the petitioner was excluded from the final list, he and other similarly situated candidates filed Writ Petition No. 56993/2014, Ompal Singh and 27 others vs. Union of India and others, the said petition was disposed of on 28.04.2015, directing respondent no. 3 to decide representation of the petitioner in accordance with law. Petitioner filed fresh representation which was decided vide order impugned dated 19.06.2017 on the ground that when the OMR sheet of the petitioner was examined manually, roll numbers were allegedly and incorrectly bubbled in the OMR sheet.
6. Sri Sudhanshu Pandey, learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that the petitioner has obtained 57.02 marks which is above the cut-off mark of 56.15%. He further submitted that it was only on the manual examination of the OMR sheet that discrepancy was found as roll numbers was allegedly and incorrectly bubbled while he has successfully qualified all the steps of the recruitment process. He further relied upon the judgment of this Court in Writ-A No. 24535 of 2017, Vipin Kumar Tiwari and Another vs. Union of India and 3 others. Relevant portion is extracted hereasunder:-
"As noted above, Sri Rai learned counsel appearing for the respondents does not dispute the marks which were awarded to the petitioners as well as the fact that they successfully completed all the steps of the recruitment process. Their names have admittedly been excluded from the final selection list only consequent to the manual examination of OMR sheets. Before this Court and as noted above, it is admitted to the respondents that both the petitioners have obtained marks higher than the last selected candidate included in the final select list as prepared by the respondents. Additionally the Court notes that the respondents while dealing with the case of another candidate namely Shreeram Meena have proceeded to hold that the incorrect mentioning of roll numbers on the OMR sheet is a 'minor technical error' and in the absence of any deliberate action on the part of a candidate such discrepancies were liable to be ignored. Dealing with the case of Shreeram Meena the respondents have observed thus:-
"From the available record, it is observed that all entries have been made by the petitioner in OMR sheet in his own handwriting correctly. Though he has written the roll number numerically correct as 2141305179 but during shading of bubble he mistakenly shaded '0' inplace of '9' which shows that the intention of the petitioner is not mala-fide. The candidature of the petitioner was rejected on the ground of minor technical error which he had not done deliberately. Hon'ble Justice of High Court, Allahabad also observered, the mistake of the petitioner as 'minor technical error'.
Since he has written his roll number correctly in numerical form, therefore his case deserves to be considered; otherwise grave in-justice will be committed towards him, if his candidature is rejected on the basis of wrong shadding of one numerical, which is minor in nature. Hence in the light of the above observations his appointment in RPF is considered."
The case of the petitioners stands on identical and equal footing. In view of the above, this Court finds itself unable to sustain the orders impugned.
The writ petition is accordingly allowed. The orders dated 29 December 2016 and 20 February 2017 are hereby quashed. The matter shall in consequence stand remitted to the Competent Authority of the respondents, who according to Sri Rai is the respondent No.2 herein. The second respondent shall now proceed to finalise the candidature of the petitioners in light of the observations made hereinabove."
7. Per contra, Sri Rajnish Kumar Rai, learned counsel appearing for the Railways in his usual fairness does not dispute the marks which were awarded to the petitioner as well as the fact that he successfully completed all the steps of recruitment. Further, he invited attention of the Court to Annexure-CA3 at Page No. 20 of the counter affidavit, wherein the extract of board sheet of final result of constable recruitment is annexed, wherein the marks obtained by the petitioner was 57.02 while the cut-off marks for UR Male was 56.15%. He further did not dispute the fact that the present case is of bubbling in the OMR sheet. However, he placed before the Court the judgment of the Division Bench of this Court in Special Appeal Defective No. 123 of 2014, Smt. Arti Verma vs. State of U.P. and 2 others, wherein this Court has held as under:-
"In the present case, the appellant claimed the benefit of Freedom Fighters category. The contention that this was as a result of an error committed by the Computer Operator cannot simply be accepted for the reason that the appellant would necessarily be responsible for any statement which he made on line. If the Courts were to accept such a plea of the appellant, that would result in a situation where the appellant would get the benefit of a wrong category if the wrong claim went unnoticed and if noticed, the appellant could always turn around and claim that this was as a result of human error. Each candidate necessarily must bear the consequences of his failure to fill up the application form correctly. No fault can, therefore, be found in rejecting the application for correction when the candidate himself has failed to make a proper disclosure or where, as in the present case, the application is submitted under a wrong category......."
8. The said case was followed by this Court in Writ A No. 21251 of 2017, Deep Shikha vs. Union of India and 2 others, in which the Court declined to interfere where the admitted mistake and the error committed was that the roll number was described wrongly which was allotted to another candidate and the Court held as under:
"In any view of the matter on a reading the order passed in Pradeep Kumar, it is evident that no final decision was rendered therein since the only terms in which the petition was disposed of was for a disposal of a representation preferred by the petitioner therein. The Court however, deems it appropriate to notice the order passed by the Division Bench in Smt. Arti Verma Vs. Sate of U.P. & 2 others [Special Appeal Defective No.-123 of 2014] wherein it was observed thus:
"In the present case, the appellant claimed the benefit of Freedom Fighters category. The contention that this was as a result of an error committed by the Computer Operator cannot simply be accepted for the reason that the appellant would necessarily be responsible for any statement which he made on line. If the Courts were to accept such a plea of the appellant, that would result in a situation where the appellant would get the benefit of a wrong category if the wrong claim went unnoticed and if noticed, the appellant could always turn around and claim that this was as a result of human error. Each candidate necessarily must bear the consequences of his failure to fill up the application form correctly. No fault can, therefore, be found in rejecting the application for correction when the candidate himself has failed to make a proper disclosure or where, as in the present case, the application is submitted under a wrong category. Interference of the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution is clearly not warranted in such matters as it creates grave uncertainty since the selection process cannot be finally completed. Moreover, in the present case, the appointment was of a contractual nature for a period of eleven months. Hence, considering the matter from any perspective, the learned Single Judge was not in error in dismissing the petition under Article 226 of the Constitution.?"
Bearing in mind the admitted mistake and error committed by the petitioner coupled with the facts that the roll number which was described already stood allotted to another candidate, the Court finds no ground to issue the writs as prayed for.
The writ petition is dismissed."
9. In the case of petitioner it is an accepted fact that roll number was incorrectly bubbled in the OMR sheet, while the petitioner was declared successful in written examination. In view of the fact that petitioner has written his roll number correctly in numerical form and only minor mistake was done as the OMR sheet was incorrectly bubbled, this Court in the case of Vipin Kumar Tiwari (supra) had held that the order impugned cannot be sustained on mere technical error. Further the case law relied upon by the respondent is distinguishable from the present case, as in that case roll number was described wrongly which was allotted to another candidate. But in the present case, petitioner had correctly written his roll number and only had incorrectly bubbled the OMR sheet, which is a technical error.
10. In view of the above, writ petition is accordingly allowed. The order dated 19.06.2017 is quashed. The matter shall in consequence remitted to the competent authority of the respondents, who according to Sri Rai is respondent no. 2 herein. The second respondent shall now to proceed to finalise the candidature of the petitioner in light of observation made hereinabove.
Order Date :- 13.9.2019 V.S.Singh