UNION OF INDIA AND OTHERS Vs. SUMIT KUMAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner has preferred the present petition assailing the order dated 21.02.2017 passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal in OA No. 215/2017 preferred by the respondent Mr. Sumit Kumar. The Tribunal has allowed the said OA along with two others, since the Tribunal considered that the issue arising in the said OAs was, more or less, the same.

(2.) The respondent/applicant was a candidate for Combined Higher Secondary Level (10+2) Examination, 2015 held for filling up various posts under the Union of India. He applied under the OBC category. Written Examination Paper-I was conducted on 06.12.2015 wherein the Respondent participated. On 29.07.2016, result of this examination was published and he was shown as qualified for the descriptive type Paper-II. On 31.08.2016, the marks list was published in respect of the Paper-I examination in which the Respondent was shown to have secured 137 marks-which was more than the cut off marks, i.e. 119 for unreserved category, and 110 marks for the OBC category. He participated in the Paper-II examination held on 18.09.2016. However, the Respondent's candidature was rejected. This was done on the ground that on the cover sheet of his answer sheet, he had not mentioned the medium in which he was taking the examination, i.e. Hindi or English. Consequently, the Respondent preferred the aforesaid OA before the Tribunal being aggrieved by the rejection of his candidature.

(3.) Before the Tribunal, the Respondent contended that the inadvertent omission on his part of his not mentioning the medium in which he had answered the question paper was an insignificant omission. He submitted that the medium i.e, the language in which the questions were answered would be evident from a bare look at the answer sheet. He submits that he realized his mistake even prior to the declaration of the result, and made representations on 22.09.2016 and 04.10.2016 stating that the medium in which he had taken the examination be treated as English. The final result was declared only on 04.01.2017-failing the Respondent. He claimed that the Petitioner herein had failed to take note of the said representations.