Judgment:
IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARAYANA AT CHANDIGARH CWP No.637 of 2013 Date of Decision: January 15, 2013 Payel Mehta ……Petitioner Versus State of Haryana and others ….Respondents CORAM: HON’BLE Mr.JUSTICE HEMANT GUPTA HON’BLE JUSTICE Ms.RITU BAHRI 1
Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment?.”
2. To be referred to the Reporters or not?.”
3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest?.
Present: Ms.Payel Mehta, petitioner in person.
HEMANT GUPTA, J.
The petitioner has invoked the writ jurisdiction of this Court to allow her to appear in Haryana Civil Service (Judicial Branch) Examination 2012, even though she is the student of the final year degree couRs.of Bachelor of Law.
The relevant condition of eligibility is as under:- “9.
Essential Qualifications:- No person shall be eligible to be appointed a Civil Judge (Junior Division) unless he holds a degree of Bachelor of Laws from a University established by the law and approved/recognized by the Bar Council of India.
The expression “Degree of Bachelor of Laws”.
means a degree entitling a candidate to be enrolled as an Advocate under the Advocates Act, 1961, and the rules made thereunder The candidate should hold a degree of Bachelor of Laws on the last date of receipt of application form i.e.17.01.2013.”
Similar issue was raised before this Court in CWP No.10105 of 2010 – (Pawandeep Singh Dhaliwal v.
The State of Punjab CWP No.637 of 2013 (2) and OtheRs.decided on 28.7.2010, in respect of an advertisement published by the Punjab Public Service Commission for the Punjab Civil Service (Judicial Branch) Examination.
It has been held that fixation of the cut off date for the purposes of eligibility cannot be said to be arbitrary.
The relevant extracts read as under:- “Having heard the learned counsel for the parties and perusing the various paper books, we are of the view that there is no merit in these petitions.
The fixation of cut off date is necessarily a policy matter which in the present case has been fixed by the Cadre Controlling Authority under Article 235 of the Constitution by the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
The fixation of cut off date brings certainty and avoids any futile exercise – a factor which appears to have weighed with the Punjab and Haryana High Court as well as the Commission, who are jointly making recruitment to PCS (Judicial Branch).The last date of receipt application has always been considered as the cut off date of determining the eligibility as has been held by Hon’ble the Supreme court in the cases of Rekha Chaturvedi (supra) and Ashok Kumar Sonkar (supra).In the absence of any cut off date an atmosphere of uncertainty would prevail and the employer would be flooded with the applications of ineligible candidates.
Moreover, some breathing time is given to the High Court and the Commission who are to process the huge number of applications for determining the eligibility of such candidates.
In the present case 17.6.2010 is the cut off date and for the preliminary test is slated for 8.8.2010.
The Commission might have to deal with thousands of applications and leaving the determination of eligibility to any later date may not be conducive in the absence of any policy decision to the contrary.
In that regard, reliance may be placed on para 20 of the judgment of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of Ashok Kumar Sonkar (supra).which reads thus:- “20.
Possession of requisite educational qualification is mandatory.
The same should not be uncertain.
If an uncertainty is allowed to prevail,, the employer would be flooded with applications of ineligible candidates.
A cut off CWP No.637 of 2013 (3) date for the purpose of determining the eligibility of the candidates concerned must, therefore, be fixed.
In absence of any rule or any specific date having been fixed in the advertisement, the law, therefore, as held by this Court would be the last date for filing the application.”
We are further of the view that prescription of any cut off date would attract similar argument as has been rightly contended because if a cut off date of 11.10.2010 as suggested on behalf of the petitioners is kept when the main examination is to commence or the cut off date of commencement of viva voce of 27.12.2010 is fixed then there might be candidates who may argue that they have taken re-appear examination in one/two papers of LL.B.(Final Year) and they would be eligible either on the date of commencement of the main examination or on the date of commencement of viva voce on 11.10.2010 and 27.12.2010 respectively.
It is because of the aforesaid reason that Hon’ble the Supreme Court in various judgments has held that even in the absence of any cut off date announced by the appointing authority or by recruiting agency like the Commission, the last date of receipt of applications form would be deemed to be the cut off date for determining the eligibility of a candidate.
It is not disputed that on 17.6.2010 the petitioners did not have the professional degree of LL.B.to their credit which may entitle them to be enrolled as an Advocate under the Advocates Act, 1961.
Therefore, the writ petitions are liable to be dismissed.”
For the reasons recorded in the aforesaid judgment with which we respectfully agree, we do not find any merit in the present writ petition.
Hence, the present writ petition is dismissed.
(Hemant Gupta) Judge (Ritu Bahri) Judge 15th January, 2013 ds