'Candidate Cannot Produce Documents At Document Verification Stage', Delhi High Court Dismisses Petition

Background

The Petitioner applied to the post of Constable (Crew) under a detailed notice for recruitment to various posts of SI in Water Wing of BSF by Direct Recruitment Examination-2020. The requirements for appointment to the post were;

i) Matriculation from a recognized board or equivalent and;

ii) one year experience in operation of Boat below 265 HP and;

iii) Should know swimming in deep water without any assistance and would submit an undertaking certificate as per Annexure- 'D-1' along with Application Form.

As per one of the provisions in the Advertisement, the candidates were required to upload the experience certificate to prove the experience. The Petitioner uploaded a certificate that had been issued to him by Heritage River Cruises Pvt. Ltd. This certificate was not as per the requirements mentioned in the advertisement and did not meet the eligibility criteria.

On 16.11.2021, the Petitioner was called for the document verification after he passed the written examination. He was also called for PST and PET examination on the same day. While his documents were being checked, it was found that the experience certificate provided by him was not in line with the eligibility criteria and could not be accepted.

The Petitioner asked for a chance to produce another certificate which accordingly to him would meet the eligibility criteria. He was availed the opportunity and he produced a certificate issued by M.V. Mahaprobhu dated 03.01.2019.

The respondents however found a discrepancy in both the certificates and rejected the Petitioner's candidature. The Petitioner made representations against the rejection of his candidature and his representations were rejected on 24.11.2021 and 09.12.2021.

Aggrieved, he approached the High Court.

Contentions of the Petitioner:

The Counsel for the Petitioner argued that the Petitioner's candidature was not liable to be rejected for a minor error. He submitted that a minor discrepancy or error could not form the basis for rejection of the candidature of Petitioner.

The Counsel contended further that the Respondents could have assessed the authenticity of the new experience certificate produced by him since the recruitment process was still at the document verification stage. He asserted that at the time of filling up the application form, the Respondents could have checked for the genuineness of the certificate and on this ground, the rejection of candidature was not fair.

Findings of the Court:

The Court held that the Petitioner's Counsel accepted that the experience certificate produced by the Petitioner did not meet the eligibility criteria. Observing that the candidature of the petitioner was rightly rejected by the competent authority of the respondents, the Court stated that the new certificate produced by the candidate/Petitioner could not be considered.

It was held that the Advertisement clearly mentioned the requirements for applying to the Post which also included producing an experience certificate. Moreover, it was quite lucidly explained in the advertisement that the candidates were required to upload the certificates at the time of filling the application form. The Bench held that the candidate could not have produced new documents to claim his eligibility right at the time of document verification stage because it was the time for verification of documents and not for production of the same.

Observing that not being able to upload the correct certificate at the time of uploading documents might have looked like a minor error, the Court held that considering the rejection of candidature of other candidates on similar grounds, it would be unjust and unfair to many other candidates if the Petitioner's experience certificate was accepted at the document verification stage.

Furthermore, the Court held that it was apprised of the fact that many candidates were rejected for the post since they did not possess the appropriate certificate on the date of the application. Moreover, some of them did not even apply to the post owing to not being able to furnish a certificate that met the eligibility criteria.

Making these observations, the Court held that it would be unjust to accept the newly produced document of the Petitioner at the stage of Document Verification.

Accordingly, the Petition was dismissed.

Case Title: Monu Singh vs. Union of India

Counsel for the Petitioner: Mr.Ankur Chhibber, Mr.Anshuman Mehrotra, Mr.Arjun Panwar, Mr.Amrit Koul, Mr.Nikunj Arora and Ms.Muskaan Dutta, Advs.

Counsel for the Respondent: Mr.Anshuman, SPC with Mr.Hemendra Singh, Dy. Comdt., BSF

Click Here To Download Order/Judgement