Marginalised People Pin Hopes On Group C & D Posts; Large-Scale Malpractice By Authorities Erodes Their Faith: Punjab & Haryana High Court

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has strongly criticized the systemic irregularities in recruitment processes for Group C and D posts, emphasizing that such malpractices deeply erode the faith of marginalised sections who view these jobs as a crucial pathway to socio-economic upliftment.

These observations were made while finding 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, "The Staff Selection Commission is ordained with a statutory task to make recruitment to Group 'C' & Group 'D' services. The marginalized segments of the society more often pin their hope on making it to that genre of posts. The large-scale public trust thus weighs upon such bodies and they are expected to have the strenuous shoulders to carry the burden and a strong spine to overcome external pressures and selfish interests."

These constitutional as well as human values are the prime ingredient to ensure that right to equality and equality before law are not just a dead letter but are the soul behind constitutional objectives of equality, it added.

The Court further said, many a times, such faith gets eroded when large-scale malpractices and arbitrariness in action, lack of fairness and transparency are reflected. Officials vested with the responsibility have more often failed to protect the fairness in action or to rise in an hour of challenge.

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 judgement (CWP-14519 of 2017), before making a final recommendation.

Finding the non-compliance with Rajesh Kumar judgement, the Court issued show cause notice to HSSC "as to why contempt of Court proceedings be not initiated against the Haryana Staff Selection Commission."

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

Title: Kapil Saini v. State of Haryana & Ors

Mr. Jasbir Mor, Advocate for the petitioners.

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

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