The bench of Justice Chakradhari Sharan Singh simultaneously also ordered the commission to invite candidates ten times the number of a post in Mains examination which it had not done.
The court also ordered the commission to get rid of the minimum qualifying marks criteria for permitting candidates to appear in the written mains examination.
The criteria were not mentioned in the advertisement for the recruitment process of APOs published on February 6 last year.
The minimum qualifying marks criteria is guided by a general administration department resolution passed in 2007. Court has directed the commission not to invoke the resolution rules in this recruitment process.
The high court order has brought relief to a large number of law practitioners as now, more candidates would get the chance to write the Mains exam who were earlier rejected by the commission.
The preliminary examination for APO recruitment was held on February 7 this year.
Its result was declared on April 27. Commission had issued a clarification on April 28 mentioning minimum qualification marks.
Altogether 3995 candidates were found eligible by the commission to appear for Mains written examination on basis of minimum qualifying marks but after the high court order, now it would have to invite more than 5500 aspirants.
Hardly within an hour of the order to revise PT results, the commission issued a notice announcing that it has postponed the main written examination for the APO recruitment process which was scheduled to take place at different centres in Patna from August 24 to August 27.
The bench was hearing a batch of writ petitions filed by Utpal Kant, Bagesh Kumar Srivastava, Dilshad Ahamad, and 31 others. Petitioners were represented by counsels Arjun Prasad Singh, Rupesh Kumar, and Vikash Kumar Pankaj. The court allowed petitioners’ prayers in a limited way.
They had moved to the high court urging that BPSC be directed to invite candidates ten times the number of vacant seats as mentioned in the advertisement. They also urged to remove the criteria of the minimum qualifying marks as nothing was mentioned about them in the advertisement and no amended advertisement was published for it.
Several candidates were not falling in the eligibility criteria to write the Mains examination due to minimum qualifying marks criteria introduced after clarification.
Advocate General Lalit Kishore along with Sanjay Pandey, appearing for commission, had argued that the recruiting body has completed several recruitment processes earlier as per the minimum qualifying marks criteria guided by GAD resolution in which it is mentioned that it would be effective in all competitive states examinations.
They also had submitted that even in the earlier recruitments, the criteria were not published in advertisements. However, the court remained dissatisfied and gave desired relief to the petitioners only because nothing was mentioned about the criteria of minimum qualifying marks in the commission’s advertisement through which it invited applications.
Source link
