Common Eligibility Test: High Court Restrains Haryana Staff Selection Commission From Declaring Result Of Phase 2 Exams

While permitting it to go ahead with Common Eligibility Test - Phase-II exams for various government jobs, the Punjab & Haryana High Court restrained the the Haryana Staff Selection Commission (HSSC) from declaring the results and said the same shall be subject to the final decision of the appeal pending before it.

The single bench had earlier directed the HSSC to not hold the exams scheduled this weekend. The written test should only be held after the revised merit list of the Common Eligibility Test is published in terms of the court order, Justice Harsimran Singh Sethi said in the order dated August 04.

However, the decision was challenged by the HSSC and a division bench took the matter for hearing on Saturday due to the urgency. While issuing notice to the respondents for September 01, the division bench of Justice G.S Sandhawalia and Justice Vikram Aggarwal said:

“In the meantime, the examination slated for the weekend i.e. today and tomorrow (or any other date so fixed by the appellant, as exam fixed for today is stated to have been postponed) shall continue, however, the result shall not be declared and shall be subject to the final decision of the present appeal.”

The division bench noted that the reasoning given by the single bench for its decision is that the candidates, who had withdrawn their claim for Socio-Economic Criteria, were still being called to sit in the written examination and proper verification had not been done.

“The learned Single Judge, thus, came to the conclusion that the zone of consideration was being restricted, since four times of the persons were to be called, if the posts are more than 40 and thus ineligible persons were occupying the field of consideration for the written examination which has now been stayed by the judgment under consideration,” it added.

Challenging the single bench’s order, the HSSC submitted that when such large number of candidates are involved, the benefit being claimed under the Socio-Economic Criteria cannot be verified at this point of time and as there are sufficient safeguards as such, “the same would be done at the final stage.”

"Reference is made to Clause 10 of the important guidelines (page No.116) that any candidate who does not fulfill any of eligibility condition or it is found that the information furnished is false or incorrect, his/her candidature would be cancelled and he/she would also be liable to be criminally prosecuted. The same would be irrespective of whether the candidate had benefited from that particular false/incorrect information," the court noted in the order. 

Case Title: Haryana Staff Selection Commission, Panchkula Vs. Rahul and another

Appearance: Baldev Raj Mahajan, Advocate General Haryana with Vivek Saini, Addl. AG, Haryana and Shruti Jain Goyal, Sr. DAG, Haryana.

Click Here To Read/Download Order