Punjab and Haryana High Court: Amit Rawal. J. dismissed the writ petition where the language of the advertisement clearly indicated the instruction for the selection.
A petition was made to quash the result of the Ex-Serviceman under BCA Category and Ex-Serviceman category as the same were not in accordance with instructions.
Sachin Jain and Naman Jain, Counsels for the petitioner submitted that the petitioner was retired from the Indian Army under Short Service Commission and had a disability of 20 percent and belonged to OBC (Non-Creamy Layer). An advertisement was made by HPSC for recruitment of the Ex-Serviceman and preferences were given to disabled Ex-serviceman having disability between 20 percent to 50 percent. The petitioner applied for the same post with all the requisite documents. The petitioner has been sanguine of selection was flabbergasted noticing the result that he was not selected. An Ex-serviceman suffering from a disability between 20% to 50% was to be given preference against dependents of those killed/disabled beyond 50% and thereafter, other Ex-servicemen can be considered for appointment.
Kanwal Goyal, counsel for the HPSC submitted that the decision of HPSC for not shortlisting the names of the petitioner in the written examination was correct as marks secured in the preliminary exam was less than cut off marks. It was also submitted that the reservation was to be applied at the time of final selection and not prior to that and thus urged for the dismissal of the writ petition.
The court opined that the language of instructions reveals that reservation to be applied for recruitment not to be made through competitive examination. Preliminary examination is not a competitive examination and thus the contention of the petitioner that violation of non-application of reservation at the time of preliminary examinations failed and the writ petition was dismissed. [Deepak Vaishnav v. HPSC, CWP No. 16637 of 2019 (O&M), decided on 01-08-2019]
