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Showing contexts for: minimum marks in the interview in Sunil Kumar And Others vs State Of Haryana And Others on 18 February, 2025Matching Fragments
13.3 A three judge Bench of Apex Court in K. Manjusree v. State of Andhra Pradesh (2008) 3 SCC 512 while dealing with the change of recruitment criteria mid-way the selection process has held it to be impermissible. The relevant extracts of the judgment read as:-
"27. But what could not have been done was the second change, by introduction of the criterion of minimum marks for the interview. The minimum marks for interview had never been adopted by the Andhra Pradesh High Court earlier for selection of District & Sessions Judges, (Grade II). In regard to the present selection, the Administrative Committee merely adopted the previous procedure in vogue.
The previous procedure as stated above was to apply 22 of 32 Neutral Citation No:=2025:PHHC:023823 connected cases.
minimum marks only for written examination and not for the oral examination. We have referred to the proper interpretation of the earlier Resolutions dated 24.7.2001 and 21.2.2002 and held that what was adopted on 30.11.2004 was only minimum marks for written examination and not for the Interviews. Therefore, introduction of the requirement of minimum marks for interview, after the entire selection process (consisting of written examination and interview) was completed, would amount to changing the rules of the game after the game was played which is clearly impermissible. We are fortified in this view by several decisions of this Court. It is sufficient to refer to three of them - Ρ.Κ. Ramachandra Iyer v. Union of India, Umesh Chandra Shukla v. Union of India, and Durgacharan Misra v. State of Orissa.
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36. The Full Court however, introduced a new requirement as to minimum marks in the interview by an interpretative process which is not warranted and which is at variance with the interpretation adopted while implementing the current selection process and the earlier selections. As the Full Court approved the Resolution dated 30.11.2004 of the Administrative Committee and also decided to retain the entire process of selection consisting of written examination and interviews it could not have introduced a new requirement of minimum marks in interviews, which had the effect of eliminating candidates, who would otherwise be eligible and suitable for selection. Therefore, we hold that the action of Full Court in revising the merit list by adopting a minimum percentage of marks for interview was impermissible"