7th Jharkhand Public Service Exams: Supreme Court Dismisses Plea Challenging Age Limit Relaxation

Taking note of the fact that relaxation of 5 years had been given in view of the fact that the last examination was held in 2016, the bench of Justices MR Shah and AS Bopanna in the order observed:

"We have heard the Ld Counsels. In the facts & circumstances of the case, considering that the last exam was conducted in 2016 & thereafter no further exam was conducted for 5 years, relaxation of 5 years has already been given. We see no reason to interfere with impugned judgement & order passed by the High Court. All SLP & applications stand dismissed."

Representing Jharkhand Public Service Commission, Advocate Himanshu Shekhar submitted that in Combined Civil Services Examination, 2016 the cut off dates were fixed as August 1, 2010 and August 1, 2016 respectively.

Commission's counsel also contended that since no examination could be held for 5 years, the Government to accommodate the aspirants for 7th Jharkhand Public Service Commission Exams issued a circular and decided to keep the cut off date for calculation of upper and lower age limit as on August 1, 2016 and March 1, 2021 respectively.

"Since we did not hold the exam for 5 years, we brought out a circular & amended the upper age limit & brought this age to 1.8.2016 just to accommodate those people since we could not hold the exam for 5 years. Therefore from our side we have already adjusted them," Counsel further submitted.

Appearing for the petitioners, Senior Advocate Ajit Kumar submitted that the State Government was trying to tinker and amend the Rules that were framed under Article 309 of the Constitution of India.

Upon Senior Counsel's submission, Justice MR Shah, Presiding Judge of the bench said that that the decision to amend the cut off age was a policy decision.

Agreeing with the submissions made by the counsel appearing for the Jharkhand Public Service Commission Justice Shah also said that,

"Last exam was in 2016. We were concerned with the lapse on the part of the authority to conduct examinations after 5 years. Considering the examinations were not conducted for 5 years, they have given age relaxation for 5 years."

The division bench of Justices MR Shah and AS Bopanna in their order dated September 13, 2021, observed that,

"Issue notice, returnable on 22.09.2021, only to consider the prayer of the petitioners whether as a one time measure, considering the fact that since last five years no examination was conducted, the age relaxation can be granted or not."

Facts Of The Case

State of Jharkhand had issued an advertisement dated February 26, 2020 for Combined Civil Service Competitive Examination 2017, 2018 and 2019 in which a suitable relaxation was given for computing the upper age limit as on August 1, 2011 for all the clubbed vacancies following the pattern adopted in earlier six consecutive yearly vacancies.

The said vacancies due to CoVID 19 were not finalised and in the meantime, the State notified Jharkhand Combined Civil Services Examination Rules 2021 ("Rules, 2021") which were to be applicable prospectively. JPSC thereafter advertised Jharkhand Combined Civil Services Competitive Exam, 2021 and as per clause 4 of the said Advertisement, the upper age limit had to be calculated on the basis of cut off date as on August 1, 2011.

Case Before Single Judge Bench Of High Court

Aggrieved, the petitioners approached the High Court for declaring proviso to rule 4 of Rules 2021 contrary to Rule 3(IV) and for declaring that there was an abrupt departure of cut off date for counting the upper age limit to Appear in Jharkhand Combined Civil Services Competitive Exam 2021.

The Single judge bench of Justice Rajesh Shankar on March 15, 2021, refused to interfere with the decision with respect to the cut-off date for computation of the upper age limit.

The High Court also observed that,

"Thus, mere fact that at some point of time, any vacancy was advertised, does not by itself gives the aspirant to be appointed on a particular post. Even after completion of the selection process, the candidates coming in the merit list do not have any vested right to seek appointment only for the reason that their names appear in the same. In the present case, since the vacancy advertised in the year 2020 was subsequently cancelled due to the situation beyond the control of the authority, the petitioners cannot claim any right by mere publication of the same."

Case Before Division Bench of High Court

Assailing the order passed by the Single Judge bench, the petitioners filed a letter patent appeal on the ground that all the eligible candidate who were left would have subsisting right under Article 16 of the Constitution if any vacancy arose in a particular year but could not be filled up and that any attempt to exclude those candidates would be an aberration of the constitutional mandate.

It was also contended that though the State had the discretionary power to fix the cut-off date for computing the age, yet the said discretion could not be exercised arbitrarily, rather must be based on rational thinking.

The State on the other hand contended that the Government had taken a rational decision in fixing the cut off date for the age calculation because the candidates belonging to unreserved category having completed minimum age limit of 21 years and maximum age limit of about 40 years on the aforesaid cut-off dates could be included and, therefore, the age relaxation was almost similar in 6th Combined Civil Services Examination and the 7th Combined Civil Services Examination, 2021.

The division bench of Chief Justice Dr Rajiv Ranjan and Justice Sujit Narayan while upholding Single Judge's order on August 25, 2021 observed that,

"The writ petitioners, from the threshold, are seeking benefit of relaxation in pursuance to advertisement No.01/2021 so far as it relates to the vacancies of the year 2017, 2018 and 2019 are concerned, which has been readvertised in pursuance to the Rules, 2021 and accordingly, this submission is hereby rejected."

Case Title: Reena Kumari v. Jharkhand Public Service Commission

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