Madhya Pradesh High Court: In a revision petition seeking to review/recall, the order dated 07-05-2024 passed by the co-ordinate bench of this Court which dismissed the writ petition of the petitioners contending that they are eligible under the Amended Recruitment Rules, but were excluded from of the MP Civil Judge Junior Division Main Examination’s cut-off list, a division bench comprising of Sheel Nagu,* ACJ., and Amar Nath (Kesharwani), J., allowed the revision petition, recalled the co-ordinate bench’s order and issued direction to re-evaluate the recruitment process to ensure only eligible candidates under the Amended Recruitment Rules progress, thereby correcting the errors in the original order. The Court directed to weed out all the ineligible candidates and issuing fresh call letter to the candidates who would be eligible as per new rules and inviting the new candidates for the Main Examination and till that time the authorities were restrained from proceeding further with the selection process.
In the instant matter, an advertisement was issued calling applications from eligible Law Graduates under Amended Recruitment Rules. The Supreme Court, vide interim order dated 15-12-2023, allowed all Law Graduates to appear in Preliminary Examination under unamended rules, subject to outcome of pending litigation. The Supreme Court had permitted all Law Graduates to appear in the preliminary examination subject to the judgment of the High Court. On 10-03-2024 the result of Preliminary Examination was declared, and 926 candidates qualified. Later the vires of the amended recruitment rules was upheld by the High Court vide order dated 07-05-2024.
The petitioners filed the present review petition challenging the impugned order dated 07-05-2024 and contended that they are eligible under the Amended Recruitment Rules but were excluded from the Main Examination because they did not meet the cut-off marks in the Preliminary Examination. It was argued that if ineligible candidates (under the Amended Rules) were excluded from the Preliminary stage, the cut-off marks would have been lower, enabling their participation in the Main Examination. It was further argued that the candidates who were ineligible as per the new rules could be ineligible and yet be appointed as Civil Judge.
On the other hand, the respondent submitted that the entire selection process took place as per the orders of the Supreme court and the High Court but at the current stage it is too late to change the entire result. It was argued that the Main Examination has been conducted and the rescheduling would adversely impact the candidates who were not even made party to the present petition. The respondent also contended that the present review petition attempts to re-argue the case on merits beyond review jurisdiction.
The Court observed that the co-ordinate bench had overlooked the fact that the cutoff marks can be changed after the ineligible candidates are taken out of the list and this reduction of the cutoff marks would make several other candidates to be eligible for Main Examination. It was also observed that the coordinate bench did not take into consideration that the whole process was subjected to the outcome of writ petition challenging the vires of the amendment rules.
The Court stated that the holding of Main Examination cannot come into way of weeding out ineligible candidates and if the 1:10 ratio of the seats to the screened-in candidates is followed, the same could make many more candidates eligible for the Main Examination. The Court relied on Anupal Singh v. State of U.P., (2020) 2 SCC 173, where it was observed that the justiciable right is created only when an order of appointment is issued and not after clearing any stage of the examination.
“To ensure purity and administration of justice, the least that is required is to prevent any ineligible candidate to secure appointment on the Post of Civil Judge (Entry Level).”
The Court asserted that the exclusion of ineligible candidates at the Preliminary stage is necessary to ensure only eligible candidates proceed through the recruitment process. The Court held that “the order under review suffers from palpable error which needs to be corrected by invoking review jurisdiction.” The Court allowed the Review petition, reviewed and recalled the co-ordinate bench’s order dated 07-05-2024 and directed to
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Exclude ineligible candidates under the Amended Recruitment Rules from the Preliminary Examination results.
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Recompute the cut-off marks after excluding ineligible candidates.
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Issue fresh call letters to eligible candidates who now meet the revised cut-off marks.
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Conduct a fresh Main Examination for newly qualified candidates.
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Restrained the respondents from proceeding with the recruitment process until the completion of the afore-mentioned steps.
[Jyotsna Dohalia v. High Court of M.P., 2024 SCC OnLine MP 4239, order dated 13-06-2024]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
Shri Atul Choudhari, Counsel for the Petitioners
Shri Aditya Adhikari, Senior Advocate with Shri Eijaz Nazar Siddiqui, Counsel for the Respondent
