ANKUR AHLAWAT Vs. UOI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner has filed this writ petition for seeking quashing of letter dated 26.6.2007 issued by the respondent No.2 rejecting the request made on behalf of the petitioner for change of educational qualification code from 03 to 04 in the application made by the petitioner for the purpose of taking the National Defence Academy and Navel Academy Examination (II) 2006.

(2.) Counsel for the petitioner submits that due to bona fide inadvertence, while filling up the form in March, 2006, in the educational qualification column of the application, the petitioner inadvertently encircled code 03 instead of encircling code 04 and this came to the notice of the petitioner only in the month of June, 2007 when the results were declared and it transpired that his name was not mentioned in the list of successful candidates for being selected to the Executive Branch of the Naval Academy. An application was also preferred before the respondent No.2 on behalf of the petitioner, which was rejected by the impugned letter dated 26.6.2007 and thus the present petition has been preferred. It is contended by the counsel for the petitioner that two vacancies still exist in the Executive Branch of the Naval Academy where the petitioner could be accommodated. It is stated that the petitioner is entitled for relaxation by respondent No.2 treating the case of the petitioner as an exceptional one in terms of the Examination Notice issued by it. It is also stated that respondent No.2 was under an obligation to cross check the educational code of the applicants at its end and had this been done, the error made by the petitioner would have surfaced much earlier.

(3.) Counsel for the respondents, who appears on advance notice, has drawn the attention of this Court to para 4 of Appendix-I to the Examination Notice advertised by the UPSC, wherein there is a clear indication to the effect that no change in the entries made in the original application will be allowed under any circumstances. She states on instructions that after completion of all formalities with respect to the selected candidates, the course in question has already begun in the last week of June 2007. She further states that the two vacancies referred to by the petitioner have also since lapsed.