Mr. Ankur Chhibber, Adv. and Mr. Anshuman Mehrotra, Adv v. UNION PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION AND ORS

Judgment

1. This writ petition assails order dated 29 September 2022 passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal1, in OA 44/20152 and OA 171/20153. The Tribunal has, by the impugned judgment, dismissed the OAs. Aggrieved thereby, the applicants in OA 44/2015 have approached this Court by means of the present writ petition. 1 “the Tribunal”, hereinafter 2 Dr. Sukhbir Singh Yadav v UPSC 3 Gajraj Singh v UPSC Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed By:AJIT KUMAR Signing Date:24.01.2025 15:28:18 W.P.(C) 2650/2023

2. We have heard Mr. Ankur Chhibber, learned Counsel for the petitioners, at length.

3. The dispute relates to recruitment to the post of Principal, consequent on advertisement notice dated 19 February 2010. Even as per the submissions made before the Tribunal by the petitioners, the prescribed mode of recruitment, in the advertisement notice, envisages a screening test followed by interview. The petitioners submitted that they were successful in the written examination and were shortlisted for interview. However, consequent on interview, their names did not figure in the list of selected candidates. This prompted the petitioners to approach the Tribunal by means of the aforesaid OA, from which the present writ petition emanates.

4. Mr. Chhibber has ventilated, before this Court, primarily two contentions, both of which were raised before the Tribunal and were negatived.

5. The first is that the procedure followed by the respondents amounted to changing the rules of the game after the game had begun, which was impermissible in law. In this regard, he submits that, though a provision for interview was in existence in the original advertisement, the advertisement did not stipulate that 50% marks would be allocated for the interview. By incorporating a stipulation of 50% marks in interview and 50% marks in the recruitment test, Mr. Chhibber submits that the respondents changed the rules of the game Signature Not Verified after the game had begun, which is impermissible in law. Digitally Signed By:AJIT KUMAR Signing Date:24.01.2025 15:28:18 W.P.(C) 2650/2023

6. Mr. Chhibber’s second submission is that allocation of 50% marks for interview is excessive. He submits that various judgments of the Supreme Court have held that interview marks for interview should not ordinarily exceed 25%. He has placed reliance on the judgment of the Supreme Court in Bishnu Biswas v UOI4 and P. Mohanan Pillai v State of Kerala5.

7. From Bishnu Biswas, Mr. Chhibber has drawn our attention to paras 8, 14, 15 and 19, which read as under: “8. This Court has considered the issue involved herein in great detail in Ramesh Kumar v High Court of Delhi6 and held as under : (SCC p. 109, paras 13-15) In Durgacharan Misra v State of Orissa7 this Court “13. considered the Orissa Judicial Service Rules which did not provide for prescribing the minimum cut-off marks in interview for the purpose of selection. This Court held that in absence of the enabling provision for fixation of minimum marks in interview would amount to amending the Rules itself. While deciding the said case, the Court placed reliance upon its earlier judgments in B.S. Yadav v State of Haryana8, P.K. Ramachandra Iyer v Union of India9 and Umesh Chandra Shukla v Union of India wherein it had been held that there was no ‘inherent jurisdiction’ of the Selection Committee/Authority to lay down such norms for selection in addition to the procedure prescribed by the Rules. Selection is to be made giving strict adherence to the statutory provisions and if such power i.e. ‘inherent jurisdiction’ is claimed, it has to be explicit and cannot be read by necessary implication for the obvious reason that such deviation from the Rules is likely to cause irreparable and irreversible harm.