High Court Imposes Rs.1 Lakh Cost On Haryana Board For Cancelling Result Of Candidate Who Failed To Give Biometrics Due To Allergy

Punjab & Haryana High Court has imposed a cost of Rs. 1 lakh on the Haryana Education Board for its "insensitive approach" in cancelling the result of a PGT candidate, whose biometric identity could not be recorded due to allergy, consequently wasting "five years" of his career.

The candidate appearing for Haryana Teacher Eligibility Test (HTET) in PGT exam could not give biometric finger prints because of having fungal infection on the finger. The officials present at the exam centre agreed to take the impression manually and allowed him to appear in the exam. However, later the Board cancelled the result stating that the identity of the candidate could not be verified due to absence of biometrics data.

Justice Jasgurpreet Singh Puri said,

"the reasons for the cancellation of the result of the petitioner was “failure in biometric” whereas it is an admitted case of the respondent-Board that the petitioner was having the aforesaid allergic/fungal infection in his hands and there is no denial of the same. Such reasoning given by the respondent-Board is absolutely unsustainable and it is rather obnoxious in nature."

"the petitioner took the exam on 16.11.2019 and his result has been cancelled and due to cancellation of his result his career has been drastically effected because the aforesaid examination which is pre-requisite for applying for the post of teachers to which he could not apply because of the aforesaid reason," the Court added.

It opined that the "the approach of the respondent- Board is absolutely insensitive and is highly deprecated."

These observations were made while hearing the plea of one Harjeet Singh, who was seeking directions to State authorities to verify the identity and presence of petitioner in examination of HTET held in 2019. So that his result can be declared.

It was Singh's case that since he as having allergic/fungal infection on the fingers his biometric finger prints could not be taken on exam day. It was submitted that he had requested the centre incharge for allowing him to sit in exam by specifically stating that his biometric finger prints cannot be taken because of the allergy in hands and undisputedly he was permitted to take the exam on the same date.

After hearing the submissions, the Court noted that due to allergy his biometrics could not be verified but "on request and after showing all of his identity proofs and documents by the petitioner and explaining about the fungal/allergic infection, the official/officer(s) of the respondent-Board had accepted his request and constituted a committee of 4-5 persons on the spot."

"The aforesaid committee had taken a written request from the petitioner and also taken his manual finger prints in view of the request," the Court added.

The Court observed that "it cannot be said that it was only because of the mistake of centre incharge that the petitioner was permitted to take exam but it was a conscious decision of the staff present there consisting of 4-5 officials to have permitted the petitioner to take the exam."

Justice Puri highlighted that, "It is very strange that the petitioner could not give biometric because of the aforesaid reason which is not denied by the respondents and then his result has been cancelled on the ground that there was a failure in the biometric by the petitioner."

Perusing the precedents relied by the petitioner, the judge noted that "the objective of using system of biometric was to prevent impersonation."

"However, in the present case, a committee of 4-5 officials took a decision on the spot to permit petitioner to take exam due to his fungal/allergic infection on the hands and fingers. Therefore, case of the petitioner could not fall in the category of impersonation," the Court said.

In the light of the above, the Court observed that, "the petitioner took the exam on 16.11.2019 and his result has been cancelled and due to cancellation of his result his career has been drastically effected because the aforesaid examination which is pre-requisite for applying for the post of teachers to which he could not apply because of the aforesaid reason."

While allowing the plea, it directed the Board to "forthwith declare the result of the petitioner and in any case within a period of one month..."

Mr. Sahir Singh Virk, Advocate for the petitioner. Mr. Kapil Bansal, DAG, Haryana.

Mr. K.K. Gupta, Advocate for respondents No.2 and 3.

Title: Harjeet Singh v. State of Haryana and others

Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (PH) 200

Click here to read/download the order