Anu Mary Joseph vs The State of Kerala

Ashok Bhushan, J.—This original petition has been filed challenging the judgment dated 30th July, 2014 in O.A. No. 1415 of 2014 by which judgment, the Kerala Administrative Tribunal has rejected the Original Application filed by the petitioner in limine.

The applicant submitted an application for the post of Lecturer in Chemistry on 3.12.2012 The examination was to take place on 8th August, 2014. Clause 11 in the admission ticket contained the following stipulation:

The scanned image of photograph on the admission ticket shall bear the name of the candidate and the date of the photograph, otherwise the candidate will not be admitted to the examination.

In view of the above condition, the petitioner is not eligible to appear in the examination. Hence, she filed O.A. No. 1415/2014 praying for a direction to the 2nd respondent to allow the applicant to write the examination on the basis of the admission ticket and a further direction to the respondent to evaluate the answer papers and publish the results.

The Kerala Administrative Tribunal has rejected the O.A. relying on a Division Bench judgment of this Court in Sasikala Vs. Kerala Public Service Commission, . Challenging the said order, this Original Petition has been filed.

The learned counsel for the petitioner submits that going by the Division Bench judgment of this Court in Sasikala''s case (supra), the petitioner is not eligible to appear in the examination. The Division Bench of this Court, considering similar issue in Sasikala''s case (supra), has laid down the following in paragraphs 3 and 4:

"3. Having heard the learned counsel for petitioner and the learned counsel for the KPSC, we see that the decision in Manojkumar (supra) was rendered in a case where the challenge was against the action of the KPSC extending opportunity to rectify the defects. As noted by the learned Single Judge in that case, KPSC had granted opportunity to rectify what it termed as ''minor defect'' to all candidates who had committed such minor defects. But in the case in hand, if we were to treat the non-mentioning of the identity of the person and the date on which photograph is taken on the phonograph as a minor defect, the very concept of the word ''minor'' as an adjective to the word ''defect'' would be lost sight of. The two crucial requirements are that the name of the persons and the date of photographing shall be written on the photograph. The need for the mentioning of the name of the person is to identify the applicant. The date on which the photograph was taken has to be mentioned. That is for the purpose of ensuring that the photograph was taken within a period of six months before the application. Either way, we are unable to see that the said defect can be passed off as a minor one. We are of the view that the ratio in Manojkumar (supra) does not apply to the facts in this case.

Adverting to the judgment in W.P. (C) No. 17767 of 2011, we find that clause No. 1(a)7 has been pointedly considered and it has been rightly held that such conditions have been made with a view to prevent impersonation and ensure fairness in the conduct of examination. In our view, the learned Judge was justified in saying that such conditions cannot be taken as insignificant especially in the light of reported incidents. We affirm the view expressed in W.P. (C) No. 17767 of 2011."

The judgment of the Kerala Administrative Tribunal is under challenge before us.

We do not find any infirmity in the order of the Tribunal rejecting the O.A. filed by the petitioner. The learned Government Pleader submits that the Division Bench judgment is being strictly followed by the Commission and no deviation has been permitted by the Commission in any case.

We are in full agreement with the view taken by the Division Bench and following the aforesaid Division Bench judgment, this Original Petition is dismissed.