Haryana SSC Prima Facie Guilty Of Contempt For Not Conducting Candidates' Biometric Verification: High Court Directs Recall Of Exam Results

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has held the Haryana Staff Selection Commission (HSSC) prima facie guilty of contempt for failing to comply with its order directing the biometric verification of candidates appearing in competitive exams.

Taking serious note of the non-compliance, the Court has asked the Commission to recall the result declared without conducting the mandated verification fir the post of Junior Engineer (Civil).

Justice Vinod S.Bhardwaj said, "Prima facie, the officials in the Haryana Staff Selection Commission are thus guilty of having committed a contempt of this Court and disobeying the specific directions issued, with impunity. Falling compliant by a mere incorporation of such condition, that had been fastened against the Haryana Staff Selection Commission, in the recommendation letter of the selection and to be discharged by the respondent State Government actually amounts to delegation of its own responsibility."

Needless to mention that the obligation to carry out the bio-metric verification was not an executive decision but was consequent upon a judicial order. In the absence of any such authority having been conferred upon the Haryana Staff Selection Commission to sub delegate such functions to the State Government, it was never open to the Haryana Staff Selection Commission to wash its hands off from performance of the said obligation by mere incorporation of a clause in the letter of recommendation.

The aforesaid non-compliance is thus sufficient unto itself to direct the Commission to recall the final result already declared by them and to undertake the aforesaid exercise of carrying out verification in terms of the mandate as given in the judgment CWP-14519 of 2017 titled as “Rajesh Kumar versus State of Haryana and others."

The plea was filed seeking direction to make a comparison of the biometric signatures of the short-listed candidates for selection, on the post of Junior Engineer (Civil) on their OMR Sheets with the specimen signatures having been obtained. It was to ascertain as to "whether the candidate who applied actually, appeared for the written test or not in terms of judgments of this Court, and in order to oust the menace of large scale impersonation in various written exams being conducted by the HSSC."

During the hearing, it was contended that the necessary biometric verification of the candidates, should be conducted in terms of the Rajesh Kumar, before making a final recommendation.

It was submitted that in terms of the High Court's direction in all selection processes that were initiated after the order dated 30.07.2018, the comparison of the finger prints/biometric was required to be done with the Aadhar Cards of the candidates to establish the true identity of each the candidates.

After hearing the submissions, the Court noted that, it is also evident from the undisputed documents on record that with respect to different advertisements and the results prepared, the bio-metric verification is being undertaken by the respondent-Commission, however, no explanation has been put forth as to why the said procedure has not been complied with in the present case of Junior Engineer (Civil) as well.

"The conduct of respondent –Haryana Staff Selection Commission in selectively applying the mandatory directions given by this Court in its order dated 04.08.2017 modified on 30.07.2018 thus appears to be lacking bona fide," the Court said.

It added that,  "no explanation, however, has come forth as to what was the basis for deviating from the procedure that was mandated by the judgment of this Court and was to be applied universally with respect to all selection processes being undertaken by the respondent."

Justice Bhardwaj highlighted that contradiction in affidavit filed by  the Haryana Staff Selection Commission wherein in one it had undertaken that the process of document verification in respect of all the selection processes that have been undertaken, however, "in the short reply filed by way of an affidavit, the said process has been ignored completely with respect to the selection process in dispute herein."

The judge opined that HSSC conveniently chose to be manipulative about the wording and posing as if verification of the documents and verification of the candidate is one process.

It added further that data verification is to ensure that no imposter appeared in the exam and "to maintain sanctity of its own selection process."

"Such concealment cannot be said to be an over-sight or failure of comprehension since its awareness by the Commission is established from the other selection processes of the Commission, clearly it was a mischievous attempt on the part of the Commission to deliberately choose misleading words to portray compliance despite being aware that the needful had not been done," the Court said.

In the light of the above, the Court issue show cause notice to HSSC "as to why contempt of Court proceedings be not initiated against the Haryana Staff Selection Commission."

Title: Kapil Saini v. State of Haryana & Ors

Mr. Jasbir Mor, Advocate for the petitioners.

Mr. Vivek Chauhan, Addl. A.G. Haryana.

Click here to read/download the order