Pankaj vs State Of Rajasthan And Ors

Concededly, petitioner had applied as a general candidate while furnishing her application form for the post of ANM pursuant to advertisement

dated 18.06.2018.

When the provisional list of candidate was published and cut-off was declared, petitioner did not find her name in the list of selected candidates,

then she realized that had she applied under OBC category, she would have been selected as her marks were more than the cut-off marks of OBC

category.

At this juncture, the petitioner took a plea that due to inadvertence of the person working with E-Mitra, her category has wrongly been mentioned

as General, instead of OBC.

After issuance of provisional select list, the petitioner appeared before the Additional Director, Department of Medical & Health Services along

with her caste certificate and requested them to consider her case as an OBC (Non-Creamy Layer) candidate.

The respondent No.2 denied such request of the petitioner stating that no request for change in category was permissible after the result is

declared.

Learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that the petitioner’s status of OBC (Non-Creamy Layer) is not in dispute, which is evident from

the certificate dated 03.06.2019 (Annex.-1) issued in this regard. He argued that in the face of the certificate, the petitioner’s candidature ought to

have been considered in OBC (Non-Creamy Layer) category, which was produced at the time of document verification.

Mr. Shreyansh Mehta, learned counsel for the respondents, submitted that the directions and conditions of the advertisement are sacrosanct and are

required to be strictly adhered to.

Heard.

This Court in catena of decisions has held that a candidate is required to be cautious while filling her category in the application form.

The request made by the petitioner to change her category, once the process has reached the stage of document verification, cannot be acceded

to as has been held in the case of Pritam Kunwar Vs. State of Rajasthan & Anr. (S.B. Civil Writ Petition No.7212/2017), decided on 04.08.2017.

Relevant part of the judgment is reproduced hereinfra:-

Wading through the aforesaid judgments, this Court is of the considered opinion that change in category is not permissible once the process has

commenced and more particularly, written examinations are over. In the present case, not only the examinations were over, even the selection process

is over. Any indulgence, if granted to the petitioner, at this stage, would be inequitable to other candidates, vying for the recruitment.

Going through the above referred judgments, it is clear that it has been consistent view of this Court that change of category, after submitting the

application form is not permissible.

The petitioner having applied for the post of Junior Accountant cannot claim herself to be not aware about the seriousness and implications of the

details furnished by her. While exercising the equitable or discretionary jurisdiction, this Court cannot afford to be oblivious of the nature of post, for

which a candidate has competed. Such purported inadvertence or error cannot be accepted or tolerated for a candidate, who has applied for the post

of Junior Accountant.

In view of above discussions, this Court neither finds any legal right of the petitioner for getting her category changed nor does it find it to be a case,

warranting sympathetical considerations.

The petition is thus dismissed summarily.â€​

In view of the aforesaid and following the judgment in Pritam Kunwar (supra), the writ petition is dismissed.

Stay petition also stands dismissed.