MUKESH KUMAR Vs. JHARKHAND PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION, RANCHI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The present writ petition is taken up today through Video conferencing. The present writ petition has been filed for declaring the proviso to rule 4 of the Jharkhand Civil Services Examination Rules, 2021 as contrary to rule 3(v) (wrongly written as rule 3(iv) in the writ petition) of the said Rule. Further prayer has been made for declaring that there is an abrupt departure of cut-off date for counting the upper age limit to appear in the Jharkhand Combined Civil Service Competitive Exam 2021 mentioned in Advertisement No. 01/2021 as the same will lead to ouster of several aspirants including the petitioners from the zone of consideration due to non-holding of the examinations which ought to be held year-wise regularly and the continuity of age relaxation has been broken without any valid reason thereby 5 years galloping jump has damaged their prospects due to non-compliance of the previous rule 3 [now rule 3(v)] of Rules, 2021. The petitioners have also prayed for issuance of direction upon the respondents to adhere to the previously adopted consecutivity of age relaxation as is evident from Advertisement No. 01/2020 so that there may not be any erosion of employment avenues in the state due to their lackadaisical omission to comply the mandate of their own framed Rules, 1951 and 2021 for those candidates who have adversely been affected from the year 2011 to 2015.

(2.) The learned counsel for the petitioners submits that Advertisement No. 01/2020 was published in the year 2020 for Combined Civil Service Competitive Examination-2017, 2018 and 2019 in the State of Jharkhand, wherein suitable relaxation was given for computation of upper age limit as 2011 for all the clubbed vacancies following the pattern adopted in earlier six consecutive yearly vacancies. However, due to Covid-19 pandemic, the said vacancy could not be finalized and in the meantime, the Jharkhand Combined Civil Services Examination Rules, 2021 was notified in the month of January, 2021 which was to be effective prospectively. Thereafter, the JPSC advertised Jharkhand Combined Civil Services Competitive Exam, 2021 through JPSC website. As per Clause 4 of the said advertisement, the upper age limit has to be calculated on the basis of the cut-off date as 1/8/2016. It is further submitted that it would be evident on examining the earlier rule vis-a-vis the new rule that the provision of clubbing the vacancies for two (or more) years together which has been made for the first time by reasons of the proviso to rule 4 of the Rules, 2021 is de-hors the rules itself. It is a settled law that if any vacancy arises in a particular year but the same cannot be filled up for some reason or the other, then all the eligible candidates who are left over will have the subsisting right under Article 16 of the Constitution of India to be considered for that post and any attempt to exclude those candidates shall be an aberration of the constitutional mandate. It is also submitted that though the State has the discretionary power to fix the cut-off date for computing the age, yet the said discretion cannot be exercised arbitrarily, rather must be based on rational thinking. It is further submitted that the petitioners do not doubt the intention of the State which may be bonafide, but it has not reached the core of the issue, rather the same is so superficial that it has not even been able to touch the mantle.

(3.) Mr. Rajiv Ranjan, the learned Advocate General appearing on behalf of the respondent-State while countering the argument of the learned counsel for the petitioners, submits that Rules, 2021 has been notified by the State Government in order to remove the deficiencies in the earlier rules to hold combined competitive examination every year. It is also submitted that vide resolution no. 7052 dtd. 17/8/2016, the cut-off dates for the calculation of the upper and lower age limit in the Combined Civil Services Examination, 2016 were fixed as 1/8/2010 and 1/8/2016 respectively. Thus, as per the aforesaid decision regarding cut-off date for age calculation, the candidates belonging to the unreserved category having completed minimum age limit of 20-22 years and maximum age limit of 41 years on the aforesaid cut-off dates were included. It is further submitted that keeping in view various representations, the State Government, vide resolution no. 805 dtd. 5/2/2021, decided to keep the cut-off date for calculation of upper and lower age limit as 1/8/2016 and 1/3/2021 respectively and accordingly, the JPSC has published Advertisement No. 01/2021. Thus, as per the aforesaid decision regarding cut-off date for age calculation, the candidates belonging to the unreserved category having completed minimum age limit of 21 years and maximum age limit of about 40 years on the aforesaid cut-off dates have been included. Thus, the age relaxation is almost similar in both 6th Combined Civil Services Examination and the current Combined Civil Services Examination, 2021. It is also submitted that had there been no delay in the conducting the examination after 2016, there would have been no age relaxation at all. The one-time age relaxation given vide resolution no. 805 dtd. 5/2/2021 may not be continued further if the Combined Civil Services Examinations are held yearly as per the Rules, 2021. There may be the affected persons falling on the wrong side of the cut-off date, but that cannot be a ground to further relax the same for such aggrieved persons. Moreover, Clause 5 of the resolution dtd. 5/2/2021 clearly stipulates that the examination will be conducted every year and the relaxation in cut-off date given by the said resolution will be valid only for the up-coming/current examination.