Recruitment Through Competitive Exams Must Select Best Candidates, Procedural Lapses In Documents Should Be Ignored: P&H High Court

The Punjab & Haryana High Court has directed that when the date or year of passing an examination is mentioned by a candidate in their application form, the date of issuance of the final certificate or degree should be ignored while considering documents for recruitment.

"The recruitment agencies should be prudent enough to select the best candidate by ignoring procedural lapses in the documents," observed the Court.

The development came after a candidate was denied an appointment letter despite securing the requisite marks. She had failed to collect her degree on time because she couldn't pay the fees, and although she had the necessary documents, the degree was issued after the cutoff date mentioned in the advertisement for admission. 

While directing the State authorities to issue appointment letter, Justice Sureshwar Thakur and Justice Sudeepti Sharma observed, "Poverty is a hard reality of life, and poor parents often sacrifice their own needs, even cutting back on meals, to provide the best education for their children. Despite the family's financial struggles, meritorious candidates like the appellant-petitioner should not be overlooked, as doing so would discourage such candidates."

Referring to the issue of the date of issuing the certificate, the bench said that, "these are all procedural lapses/delays for which the students/candidates/ aspirants for job should not suffer. Apart from this, we have observed in other matters also, some time there is lapse/delay on the part of certain educational institutions, in issuance of marks sheet/degrees."

Court added that recruitment agencies should take into consideration the date and year of passing of the examination and not the date of issuance of the certificate.

Background

The Court was hearing an appeal by one Harpreet Kaur who was denied admission to Masters because the date of issuing of the certificate of the Bachelors degree was beyond the cut-off date. The candidate submitted that she could not get the certificate on time because she failed to deposit fees for the certificate due to financial constraints.

After hearing the submissions, the Court noted that "there is no dispute regarding the fact that the appellant-petitioner also appeared in the counseling with original documents, and since date of issuance of certificate of B.Ed. was 10.10.2022 (beyond cut-off date), the appellant-petitioner was denied appointment."

"Since she did not deposit the requisite the fee because of the financial condition of the family and deposited the same vide receipt dated 22.09.2022, the certificate of degree of B.Ed was issued on 10.10.2022. Once it is certified in the degree of Bachelor Education for two years course, that the appellant passed the examination in May, 2017, the recruitment agencies who are presumed to be consisting of members of experts, who read the certificates in its correct perspective, rather than going into the date of issuance of certificate, should consider the date of passing of the examination," the bench added.

The Court further clarified that if in any exceptional cases, there is some doubt regarding the authenticity of the marks sheet/date of declaration of results, etc., the candidate should be issued a provisional appointment letter subject to the condition of them being retained in the job based on verification of the educational qualification certificates.

"It would reduce the unnecessary litigation and would encourage all the meritorious candidates," the Court said.

Consequently, the Court directed the authorities to give an appointment letter to the appellant-petitioner forthwith.

Ms.Sonia G.Singh, Advocate for the appellant.

Mr.Maninder Singh, Sr. DAG, Punjab.

Ms.Divya Godara, Advocate for respondent No.5.

Harpreet Kaur v. State of Haryana and others

Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (PH) 198

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