Full Judgment
V.N. Gaur, Member (A):
1. The applicant had applied for the post of Assistant Commissioner, Employees Provident Fund Commissioner (EPFC) organization in response to the advertisement dated 14.04.2012 issued by the UPSC-respondent no.1. He appeared in the written test on 23.09.2012 and thereafter he was informed by the respondents vide letter dated 21.02.2013 that his application had been rejected as the respondent no.1 had not received confirmation of payment of examination fee of Rs.25/- and that an appeal against such rejection would be received in the UPSC office within 10 days. The applicant submitted an appeal on 28.02.2013 explaining that he had submitted his application form online on 24.02.2013 and paid the examination fee through a Debit Card. He also stated that there was sufficient amount in the account and that he was informed by the concerned Branch of the State Bank of India (SBI) that the transaction was not successful because of some technical snag in the server and the error in the network. The respondents without any further communication allowed him to appear in the interview held on 17.06.2013 on provisional basis subject to the condition that the applicant would submit proof of payment of examination fee at the earliest. The applicant submitted another representation on 29.06.2013 enclosing various documents to support his contention that he had made attempt to make online payment and the transaction had failed without his knowledge due to technical snag. The respondents however have withheld his result.
2. Shri M.K. Bhardwaj, learned counsel appearing for the applicant has submitted that the last date of submission of applications was 03.05.2012 and the applicant submitted his application online much before that date on 19.04.2012. The applicant was under the belief that the required amount of Rs.25/- had been debited to his account as there was no error message at the time of making transaction. It was only in February, 2013 that the respondent no.1 informed the applicant about non-receipt of the examination fee and the applicant was given time to submit the appeal, if any. After the applicant had submitted his appeal, he was allowed to appear in the interview without any further communication, which created an impression that his appeal had been accepted. Again, at the time of interview he was asked to submit proof of payment. According to the learned counsel once the applicant was to appear in the interview after considering his appeal the respondent no.1 was estopped from re-opening the issue of payment of the examination fee. Besides that if there was a technical error in the system of the Bank, the applicant cannot be held responsible for the same and penalized by rejecting his candidature. He referred to a communication of Punjab National Bank (PNB) giving a log of the transactions made at 18:19:51 and 18:24:33 on 19.04.2012 for payment of an amount of Rs.25/- and both the transactions were unsuccessful. In another communication the ATM centre of SBI has also confirmed that the aforementioned transaction was attempted on 19.04.2012 in favour of the UPSC_ORA and the same was unsuccessful. The same has been further certified by the Chief Manager, PNB, Boring Road Branch. According to the learned counsel for the applicant the respondents have introduced a system of online submission of form along with online payment of examination fee and, therefore, if the system malfunctions, the responsibility of the same cannot be transferred to the applicant.
3. The learned counsel for the respondents, on the other hand, submits that the respondent no.1 follows a uniform rule that if the prescribed examination fee was not received along with application form, the application is rejected. In this case, since the applicant had been given opportunity to file an appeal, he had been provisionally allowed to appear in the written examination and subsequently in the interview. Respondent no.1 thus has given full opportunity to the applicant to prove that the required examination fee had been paid. However, as the facts turned out to be, whatever might be the reason, the UPSC did not get the requisite fee, which is a pre-condition for treating the application valid. He denied that permitting him to appear in the interview implied that his contentions made in the appeal had been accepted. In this connection he referred to the text of the interview letter where it was clearly mentioned that he was being allowed to appear in the interview provisionally. Referring to the counter-affidavit filed on behalf of respondent no.1 he submitted that when respondent no.1 asked the applicant to submit the proof of payment of examination fee, it did not imply that the applicant was to file the reason for non-payment. Therefore, the applicant cannot be allowed to take advantage of his own wrong, the learned counsel submitted.
4. We have carefully considered the rival submissions and the documents placed on record. The limited question to be examined is as to how to deal with the situation where a candidate makes an attempt to pay the examination fee online but the same is not credited to the account of the respondent no.1. From the submission it is clear that the applicant had made what he believed was a successful, attempt to pay the examination fee online on 19.04.2012 well in time before the last date of application, which was 03.05.2012. The documentary evidence shows that he had sufficient amount in the account on that date and the payment was not successful because of some technical snag. It is also not the case of the respondent no.1 that the system devised by them had generated any SMS or any error message, warning the applicant that the transaction was not successful. A candidate in all fairness would presume in these circumstances that the payment was successful. Had there been any error message, the applicant could possibly have tried again to pay the amount since there was plenty of time before the closing date of the application. The respondent no.1 through their statement in the counter-affidavit and through their learned counsel, have completely washed their hands of any responsibility with regard to the technical snag or system failure in the online payment system. The counter-affidavit goes on to say that It is the bounden duty of the applicant to see that examination fee is paid in the prescribed modes but he incurred risk by the mode adopted by him for which the answering respondent cannot be held responsible for him particularly when it was well pointed out to all the candidates including the applicant in this regard. It is quite clear that the respondent no.1 who has introduced the system of online submission of application forms termed as Online Recruitment System (ORS) and the concerned Banks and Agencies with whom they have entered into an agreement to maintain the gateway for accepting the online examination fee do not want to take any responsibility for the maintenance and error free operation of the system. Instead, it is the applicant, who has is expected to choose the most reliable of the Modes for payment of examination fee and if the same fails, it is he who has to incur the risk. On what basis the applicant has to decide or choose the most reliable modehas also not been elaborated. We have not come across a more weird logic than this from a responsible organization like respondent no.1-UPSC. If we extrapolate that logic further it would mean if the ORA itself breaks down on certain days and the UPSC do not receive the application due to error in the network even though the candidate had duly applied and deposited the examination fee, it is the applicant who would be held responsible for not choosing the right mode of application, which is obviously an absurd conclusion.
5. Considering the aforementioned facts and the reasons, we are of the view that it is the respondent no.1s responsibility to ensure that the ORA, including the online system for payment of examination fee runs smoothly and without any error and in case there is an error adequate warning and opportunity should have been given to the applicant to rectify the shortcomings in his application by allowing him to pay the prescribed fee at an appropriate stage. We, therefore, direct respondent no.1 to give opportunity to the applicant to deposit the prescribed fee and thereafter declare his result, within six weeks from the date of receipt of this order. With these directions the OA is allowed. No costs.