PIL Filed In Delhi High Court Seeking Resumption Of All Recruitment Process Cancelled Due To "Agnipath Scheme"

A PIL has been moved in the Delhi High Court to resume all recruitment process (of the years 2020 and 2021) cancelled due to introduction of Centre's Agnipath Scheme and to conduct Written Examination in all pending centres.

The plea also sought directions to prepare merit list and give permanent commission to the selected candidates as per the scheme of advertisements, prior to introduction of Agnipath Scheme across the country within a stipulated time frame.

The matter listed for hearing today before a division bench headed by Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma has been for tomorrow with a bunch of other petitions seeking similar reliefs.

Significantly, the Supreme Court today transferred all petitions filed before it challenging the Agnipath Recruitment Scheme to the High Court.

The plea has been moved by a candidate who had applied for the post of Soldier General Duty in Army Recruitment Rally at Sirsa from July 30, 2020 to August 8, 2020.

The petition has been filed by Advocates Vijay Singh and Pawan Kumar.

The plea states that all three Defence services i.e., Army, Navy and Air force issued several advertisements, all across the country, at more than 28 centres, for Persons Below Officer Rank (PBOR) in year 2020 & 2021.

The petitioner alongwith other of candidates, applied for the posts under the said advertisements and appeared in the recruitment process, as asked, on several dates.

The plea thus states that under all the advertisements, physical and medical examinations of the candidates were conducted and the selected candidates had been issued with admit cards to appear in Common Entrance Examination (CEE).

"Unfortunately, the proposed written examination, has been deferred/ postponed by the Respondents, illegally and arbitrarily, several times, by citing Covid - 19 outburst. However, several other examinations took place comfortably including UPSC, NEET, Delhi Judiciary (including higher judiciary) etc but CEE was deliberately put on hold for the reasons best known to the Respondents," the plea states.

It adds "Shockingly, in light of a new scheme introduced by the Union of India i.e "AGNIPATH SCHEME", the Respondents arbitrarily cancelled all the pending recruitment process (of years 2020 and 2021) including conducting CEE and asked all the candidates to appear through "AGNIPATH SCHEME" afresh."

The plea thus argues that due due to illegal and arbitrary cancellation of recruitment process, where the candidates had already cleared the physical and medical examination, not only caused grave shock and immense pain but also violated the fundamental rights of Articles 14, 19 and 21 of Constitution of India.

"It is submitted that the non-selection of the Petitioner alongwith other candidates for appointment to various posts in the Indian Defence services by the Respondents pursuant to the Notification of Recruitment by "AGNIPATH SCHEME" is illegal, arbitrary, improper and discriminative," the plea argues.

Case Title: RAHUL v. UNION OF INDIA & ORS.