Setting Cut-Off Dates For Recruitment Is Strictly Within Domain Of Employer, Cannot Be Relaxed To Accommodate Anyone: Rajasthan High Court

The Rajasthan High Court (“the Court”) has reiterated that fixing a cut-off date for recruitment processes falls purely in the domain of the employer and such a cut-off date was uniform for all the applicants and could not be relaxed for certain participants. The Court said:

“It is a settled position of the law that the setting and beholding of a cut-off date falls purely within the domain of the employer, to be decided and/or imposed in accordance with the necessities accruing to them and the administration of the concerned examination.”

The bench of Justice Sameer Jain was hearing a petition filed by the petitioner who had applied for the post of “Assistant Town Planner” pursuant to an advertisement of the selection process. As per the advertisement, even final-year students were allowed to apply for the post. The only condition was that such students were required to furnish their mark sheet of qualification under the respective course before the date of the written examination.

As per the case of the petitioner, before the date of the written examination, all theory papers and coursework of her final year course were done except for her dissertation. The result of this dissertation was released subsequent to the date of the written examination for the post.

Due to failure on her part to submit the result of her dissertation before the cut-off date i.e. before the date of written examination, her candidature for the post was not considered by the Rajasthan Public Service Commission. This order of the government was challenged by the petitioner by way of a petition before the Court.

It was argued that the late submission of the result was due to reasons beyond the control of the petitioner and hence, her candidature should not be rejected.

The Court observed that the advertisement had clearly fixed a cut-off date for submission of documents by the final year students i.e. before the date of written examination. And the petitioner was unable to submit the documents because the result of her dissertation was declared beyond the cut-off date by her university. However, the Court said that because of this delay on the part of the petitioner's university, the entire cut-off date could not be set aside.

“In the facts of the present case, no challenge is raised against the cut-off date. Rather, the only ground advanced is delay on part of the petitioner's university in declaring the petitioner's final year result. It goes without saying that for the said delay, the entire cut-off date sans challenge, cannot be set aside and/or relaxed, merely in order to accommodate certain participants, when the said cut-off date, being abundantly clear, is uniform for all applicants,” it said.

The Court also stated that setting a cut-off date fell strictly within the domain of the employer and it could not be relaxed merely to accommodate certain participants. Accordingly, the petition was dismissed.

Title: Rita Singh v State of Rajasthan & Ors.

Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (Raj) 133

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