ASHISH BAHAGUNA Vs. UTTARAKHAND PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner before this Court was a candidate for the State Combined Civil Services Examination 2012. He had submitted online application form like other candidates. One of the important instructions given by the State Public Service Commission for the examination, which is contained as Annexure No. 1 to the writ petition, in its item no. 8, (if translated in English) states that "more than one application form of a candidate will not be accepted". The petitioner, instead of one application, moved two application forms. Hence, the candidature of the petitioner is not being considered and the State Public Service Commission vide its order dated 14.11.2014 has published a list of about 105 candidates who had filled two application forms instead of one and both their application forms have been rejected. The list, therefore, indicates rejection of 210 forms. The petitioner's name figures at serial number no.37 and 38.

(2.) THE contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner is that there was no restriction in filling more than one application form and, therefore, for abundant precaution he had submitted two forms instead of one, by paying separate examination fee for each form. The condition at serial number no. 8 only states that more than one application form for a candidate will not be accepted. A literal meaning of this would be that in case a candidate applies by more than one application form, only one application form will be considered and the remaining will not be considered.

(3.) THE learned counsel for the State public Service Commission Mr. B.D. Kandpal has tried to reason out the aforesaid provision by stating that the purpose of such condition is that multiple forms by one candidate should not be sent, as they would be rejected. The contention of Mr. B.D. Kandpal, is quite reasonable, yet we find that since a literal meaning of the said provision is that "more than one form will not be accepted" and there is no clear -cut direction that in case a candidate fills more than one application form, then all would be rejected, we feel that the benefit ought to be given to the petitioner.