Hima Kohli, J.

1. Aggrieved by the order dated 31.07.2018, passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal, Principal Bench, New Delhi, rejecting O.A. No.2635/2018 filed by the petitioner, a successful candidate in the Central Civil Services Examination, 2017 (in short 'CSE, 2017'), assailing the letters dated 13.02.2018 and 21.02.2018 issued by the respondent No.2/UPSC, rejecting her preferences for Zones and Cadre allocation, she has approached this Court for relief.

2. The facts of the case lie in a narrow compass. The respondent No.2/Union Public Service Commission (in short „UPSC’) conducts Civil Services Examinations on an annual basis for recruitment to the IAS, IFS, IPS and other Central Services in Group „A’ and „B’. The said scheme of examination is commonly known as the Civil Services Examination and comprises of two stages, namely, Civil Services (Preliminary) Examination and Civil Services (Main) Examination. The second stage for selection of candidates is split into two stages, written examination and interview/personality test. The dispute in the present case relates to the CSE, 2017.

3. It is not in dispute that till the CSE, 2016, preferences of Cadre were obtained from candidates before sitting for the CS (Main) Examination when they were required to fill in the Detailed Application Form (in short „DAF’). However, the said procedure was changed for the CSE, 2017 and this time, the candidates were informed that they would be notified for submitting their preferences of Cadres (for IAS/IPS) in due course of time through an Addendum to the DAF after the revised Cadre Allocation Policy of the Government becomes available. Later on, a Press Note was released by the respondents on 08.01.2018, declaring the results of the CS(Main) Examination and informing the candidates, who had provisionally qualified for the personality test/interview that they could fill up the Addendum to the DAF for submitting their Zones and Cadre preferences online and that the said Addendum will be available on the website of the respondent No.2/UPSC from 16.01.2018 to 29.01.2018 (06:00 PM).

4. The petitioner herein participated in the CSE, 2017 and cleared the Preliminary Examination conducted in May, 2017. The respondents issued an Office Memorandum dated 05.09.2017, informing all the candidates that they were required to give their preferences firstly for the Zones and lastly for the Cadre State they would like to serve in. It is the version of the petitioner that she had filled in her preferences on the last date, i.e., on 29.01.2018 and had tried to submit the same before the deadline but due to some glitch in the network, the link of the respondent No.2/UPSC stopped responding and therefore, she could not submit her Zones and Cadre preferences by 6:00 PM. However, without losing any time, the petitioner sent mails to the respondents on 29.01.2018 itself at 6:29 PM, drawing their attention to the difficulty faced by her in submitting her Cadre preferences before the deadline and stating that her saved preferences may be considered as her submission. On the very next day, i.e., on 30.01.2018, the petitioner, who is residing at Mohali, State of Punjab, had personally travelled to the office of the respondent No.2/UPSC at Delhi and submitted a written representation, highlighting the aforesaid difficulty. She had also mailed a similar representation to the respondent No.2/UPSC on the very same day, i.e., on 31.01.2018, followed by e-mails dated 07.02.2018 and 11.02.2018. On 13.02.2018, the respondent No.2/UPSC informed the petitioner that since she had failed to submit her preferences for the Zones and Cadres within the prescribed time period, her preference has been treated as „NIL’.

5. On receiving the aforesaid reply, the petitioner wrote back to the respondent No.2/UPSC on the very same day, requesting that her case be consid