Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Mar 6 : Terming the action taken by the Public Service Commission as showering sympathy upon some blue-eyed candidates by revising the result notification in J&K combined Competitive Examination 2023, the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) directed the PSC to allow the aggrieved candidates to appear provisionally in mains.
About 50 aggrieved candidates approached the court with the plea by the counsel Arif Skinder on their behalf that they in pursuance of notification dated April 13, 2023 submitted their forms and after due process and norms, the result of Preliminary (Prelims) Examination was declared on October 2023 but the PSC on November 11 withdrew the result of Prelims and issued a new result notification in supersession of the first result notification against the rules and norms governing the field.
Advocate Arif Skinder informed the court that by virtue of the said arbitrary action on part of the PSC, ousting and dropping about 180 candidates including the aggrieved applicants who had otherwise qualified for main examinations, added approximately 180 new candidates and declared them to have qualified to appear in the mains.
The PSC counsel submitted that the revised result was notified in view of number of representations having been received by the Commission regarding certain factual errors in the final answer key of the first paper and on receipt of the representation, the PSC took a sympathetic stance towards the concern of the aspirants and decided to re-refer the concerns so raised to the experts for scrutiny once again.
Advocate Skinder during his arguments referred to rule 46 of PSC and impressed upon that there is no such provision for re-evaluation of answer scripts and answer sheets and the candidates who have appeared in the written test, screening test will not be allowed on any grounds to substantiate and buttes his arguments in this regard.
“…a candidate who has passed the examination and whose name appears in the select list even, does not have an indefeasible right to seek appointment, yet appointment cannot be denied arbitrarily nor can the selection list be cancelled without giving any proper justification”, the CAT bench said.
The CAT said the courts are not powerless to issue appropriate directions, where decision is found to be arbitrary and here the examination of the applicants could not have been cancelled, particularly in violation of the basic statute and that too on the basis of those candidates who had failed in the earlier test.
“Prima facie, the order impugned seems to have been passed without proper application of mind …” CAT said and directed the PSC to allow the applicants to appear provisionally in examination and made it clear that they shall be allowed to appear in the mains strictly at their risk and responsibility. “…the result of the applicants shall not be declared unless otherwise directed by the court”, read the order.
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