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A bench of Justices Dr. Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud and AS Bopanna yesterday remarked that the recruitment process undertaken by competent authorities would be meaningless without a timeline and the next recruitment process will also get affected since determination of the number of vacancies for the next process will keep fluctuating.

The Court was thus of the view that a line has to be drawn at some stage.

The state of Uttar Pradesh had published an advertisement in the year 2015 to recruit Police Constables to the Provincial Armed Constabulary (Male) by direct recruitment.

The respondent who had submitted his application was issued an admit card and the initial fitness examination was held.  

It was the case of the respondent that he was unable to appear for the physical fitness test and   the verification of documents for want of written communication.

A single judge bench of the Allahabad High Court had allowed the respondents' prayer on grounds for equitable consideration. This order was upheld by a Division Bench of the Court.

In the instant case the process had commenced in 2015 and the document verification alongwith the physical fitness test was held in 2018. Several candidates who were permitted pursuant to the order of the High Court had taken part in early January 2019.

It was noted that the Single Judge and the Division Bench of the High Court, did not grant the relief to the respondent by recording a finding with regard to non-compliance of any requirement envisaged under the Rule or procedure provided in the advertisement calling for applications.

The cited Rule mentioned that the intimation was to be provided by postal communication or any other mode, remarked the court.

“In that view, there is no bar in intimating the candidates through SMS, more particularly when a large number of candidates had to appear in the subsequent process and majority of the candidates have appeared for document verification and physical fitness test pursuant to intimation by SMS," the Court held.

It was further found that the respondents case was not that he had not received the SMS but a technical contention that he ought to have been intimated through postal communication.  

With regard to this, the Court said,

“When a requirement is stated in the application to provide the mobile number, it is with a purpose to communicate and in the instant case, the appellants have sent the SMS to the very number which had been furnished by the appellant.”

Calling it a vague contention that a person may not retain the same number after a long lapse of time, the Court remarked that no material was brought on record to indicate that the respondent did not possess the said mobile connection as on the date the SMS was sent. 

The Court further noticed that the respondent was not vigilant at the earliest point in time but it was only after such consideration had been made by the High Court and an opportunity was granted to certain other persons, the respondent had chosen to file the writ petition by merely contending that he had made a request to permit him to take part in the process in January 2019 and he had not been permitted.

“Since, sufficient time has elapsed   thereafter   it   would   not   be   appropriate   to   make   an exception   in   the   case   of   the   respondent   at   this   stage   as otherwise the trickle would continue.”, said the bench.

With this view, the impugned orders were set aside.

Cause Title: State of Uttar Pradesh and Ors. v Pankaj Kumar