Eligibility criteria for recruitment must be established prior to the examination, and any changes post-examination violate principles of fairness and transparency.

ORDER :

1. In the captioned petition, petitioner presently working as a Junior Training Officer at Government ITI College, Dhulkhed, Vijayapur District is aggrieved by the endorsement issued by respondent No. 3 in rejecting petitioner’s candidature to the post of Junior Engineer (Mechanical) and Assistant Engineer (Mechanical) under both HK quota and non-HK quota.

2. Facts leading to the case are as under:

Respondent No. 1-Corporation issued a notification calling for applications for recruitment of various posts. In response to the recruitment notification, petitioner submitted her application to the post of Junior Engineer (Mechanical) as well as Assistant Engineer (Mechanical) under HK quota and non-HK quota. Pursuant to the scrutiny made by respondent No. 2, petitioner was found eligible to take up written examination and participate in recruitment process. Petitioner was issued with admission ticket for written examination, which was scheduled on 21.01.2018. Petitioner appeared in the examination.

3. The petitioner was required to take a Kannada language test as part of the selection process, and she duly appeared for the same on January 28, 2018. In this test, the petitioner secured an impressive score of 71 marks. However, respondent No. 2 later issued a corrigendum on June 23, 2018, notifying all candidates that the written test conducted on January 21, 2018, was cancelled. During the intervening period, the petitioner secured an appointment as a Junior Training Officer in an ITI college. After a lapse of nearly five years, respondent No. 2 wrote a letter to respondent No. 4, instructing them to take responsibility for conducting a re-examination of all technical papers as well as the Kannada language test. In compliance with these directions, respondent No. 4 issued a fresh notification for re-examinations.

4. Subsequently, the petitioner appeared for the re-examinations held on February 18 and February 19, 2024. In the Kannada language test conducted as part of the re-examination process, the petitioner scored 36 marks out of 150. This marked a significant deviation from her earlier performance in the Kannada test.

5. Though a final score list was eventually published, it did not explicitly indicate whether the petitioner had passed or failed the Kannada language test. Respondent No. 2 issued a notification for document verification, publishing a checklist along with an additional list of candidates eligible to appear for document verification, which was scheduled for August 21, 2024. The petitioner’s name appeared in the additional list at Serial No. 280, leading her to believe she was eligible for further consideration.

6. On the scheduled date, the petitioner appeared for document verification. However, respondent No. 3, during the verification process, endorsed that the petitioner had failed the Kannada language test and, as a result, her candidature could not be processed further. This determination came despite the fact that the cut-off marks for the written examination for each category of post were only published on August 21, 2024, the same day as the document verification process.

7. Feeling aggrieved by the impugned endorsement issued during the document verification, the petitioner has filed the present petition, challenging the rejection of her candidature. The petitioner contends that the process and basis for disqualifying her on the ground of failing the Kannada language test were arbitrary and lacking transparency, particularly given the delay in publishing the cut-off marks.

8. The learned counsel appearing for the petitioner, while reiterating the grounds raised in the petition, has vehemently argued and contended that neither the cadre or recruitment rules, as evidenced in Annexure-B, nor the recruitment notification issued by respondent No. 1, prescribe any minimum qualifying marks to be obtained in the Kannada language test. He asserts that the petitioner’s performance in the Kannada language test should