Amit Bathla vs State Of Uttarakhand And Others

Manoj Kumar Tiwari, J

Petitioners in all these writ petitions aspire to become Civil Servants and according to them, they have been preparing since long for the competitive

examination held by Uttarakhand Public Service Commission, namely Combined State Civil Service/Upper Subordinate Service Examination.

According to the petitioners, applications were last invited for the said examination in the year 2016 and during the next five years, no selection was

held and due to this delay on the part of respondents in holding selection, they have crossed the upper age limit of 42 years, as prescribed in the

applicable Service Rules.

It is submitted on behalf of petitioners that all of them were within prescribed age limit in the year 2016, when vacancies were last notified and they

had participated in the said selection but were unsuccessful. According to them, due to the inordinate delay in holding next selection, valuable right of

the petitioners to be considered for public employment has been denied to them.

Similar relief is claimed in all the writ petitions, however for the sake of brevity relief claimed in Writ Petition (S/B) No. 629 of 2021 alone is being

extracted below:-

“i) Issue a writ of certiorari quashing the condition of upper age limit as 42 years on applying for the post of Civil Services Executive Branch of

Uttarakhand as contained in condition no.14 of the advertisement dated 7.12.2021. (Contained as Annexure No.1 to this writ petition)

ii) Issue a writ order or direction in the nature of mandamus commanding and directing the respondents to grant relaxation to the petitioner in the upper

age limit criteria upto four additional years. (2017-2020) when the Uttarakhand Combined Civil/Upper Subordinate Services Examination (PCS

Examination) was not held and to permit the petitioner to participate in the present PCS recruitment for the Executive Branch posts.â€​

Learned counsel for the petitioners submits that under proviso to Rule 10 of Uttaranchal Civil Service (Executive Branch) Rules, 2005, which are

applicable to the post of Deputy Collector, State Government is empowered to relax the upper age limit in appropriate cases. He further submits that

this power of relaxation was invoked by State Government in the earlier selections held in the year 2014 and 2016. He further submits that since State

Government has invoked this power in the last two selections, therefore, in-action on the part of State Government to invoke the said power, this time

when selection is being held after 5 years, is unjust and improper.

Learned counsel appearing for the petitioners has placed reliance upon an order dated 27.12.2021 passed in Writ Petition (S/B) No.581 of 2021 and

he submits that since in similar circumstances, Co-ordinate Bench of this Court has granted interim relief to petitioners in the said writ petition,

therefore, petitioners in this writ petition are also entitled for similar interim relief.

Mr. Ashish Joshi, learned counsel appearing for respondent no.2-Uttarakhand Public Service Commission submits that pursuant to the aforesaid

interim order passed on 27.12.2021, applications submitted by petitioners in the said writ petition have been provisionally accepted. He however

submitted that there may be other similarly situate persons, who would have become over-age by now and Public Service Commission will face

difficulty in completing the selection process if applications made by all such candidates is directed to be provisionally accepted. He further submitted

that Public Service Commission has to hold selection strictly as per the recruitment rules and relaxation in age, if any, can only be granted by the State

Government. He further submitted that State Government’s Policy decision regarding age relaxation would resolve the issue involved in these writ

petitions.

The matter requires scrutiny.

Learned counsel for the respondents pray for and are granted four weeks for filing counter-affidavit.

List this case alongwith Writ Petition (S/B) No. 581 of 2021 in the month of February, 2022.

In the meantime, Respondent no.1 shall consider granting relaxation in upper age limit to candidates who have become ineligible for appointment to

the post of Deputy Collector, only due to non-holding of any selection during the last 5 years.

Petitioners are permitted to apply pursuant to the advertisement in question respondent no.2 shall provisionally accept the application submitted by

petitioners. In case filing of online application is not possible, respondent no.2 shall permit petitioners to submit their application in physical form.

Petitioners shall be permitted to participate in the selection process, if they are found otherwise eligible, however, their result shall not be declared

without leave of this Court.

Let a certified copy of this order be provided to the counsel for the parties within 24 hours, on payment of usual charges.