Point of Law: A person against whom any action is sought to be taken or whose right or interests are being affected should be given a reasonable opportunity to defend himself.

JUDGMENT :

1. In the present batch of petitions under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the petitioners, who are all aspirants for appointment to the post of Assistant Grade (III) Depot, Assistant Grade (III) General and Junior Engineer (CE), in the respondent no.2/Food Corporation of India seek quashing of the list issued in December, 2020 by respondent no.2 withholding the result of the selection process of some of the candidates including the petitioners. The petitioners also seek a consequential direction to the respondent no.2 to appoint them on the aforementioned posts with all consequential benefits.

2. Before embarking on the rival submissions of the parties, it may be appropriate to note the brief factual matrix.

3. The respondent no.2, on 23.02.2019, published an advertisement for recruitment to the post of Assistant Grade III in the General, Depot, Technical, and Accounts department as also for the post of Assistant Grade II (Hindi) and JE (CE) in its organization. The petitioners, being eligible, applied for appointment to the aforementioned posts and consequently appeared in the Phase-I examination held on 02.06.2019, which examination comprised of 100 Multiple Choice Objective questions required to be answered in 60 minutes.

4. Upon being declared successful in the Phase-I examinations on 08.07.2019, the petitioners then appeared in the Phase-II examinations on 27.07.2019, which comprised of 120 multiple choice questions to be solved in 90 minutes, results whereof were declared in December, 2019. The petitioners, however, did not find their names in the category of selected candidates and therefore made various representations, including filing of applications under the Right to Information Act, 2005, seeking reasons for their non-selection to the aforementioned posts as also the marks obtained by them in the Phase-II examination. It was only in December, 2020 that the petitioners were, without reasons being assigned informed that their candidature had been withheld.

5. Upon learning about their candidature having been withheld, the petitioners, in February, 2021, approached the respondents to inquire about the reasons for their candidature being withheld. It is then that the respondent no.2 provided them with a copy of the impugned list which stated that the results of some candidates including the petitioners had been withheld in accordance with the recruitment notification. The petitioners were also verbally informed that this was due to a similarity in the pattern of their answers with the answers of some other candidates in the Phase-II examination. The respondents, however, refused to provide details of the same to the petitioners, leading to the filing of the present petitions.

6. In support of the petition, Mr. Nitin K. Gupta, learned counsel for the petitioners, at the outset submits that the issue raised in the present petitions is squarely covered against respondent no.2 by a decision of the Apex Court in Staff Selection Committee through its Chairman vs. Sudesh. On 19.07.2017, the Apex Court, dismissed the Appeal being CA No. 2836-2837 of 2017 against the decision of this Court in Staff Selection Committee through its Chairman vs. Sudesh(2014) SCC OnLine Del 7534. In Sudesh (supra), the Division Bench had rejected a challenge to an order passed by the learned Central Administrative Tribunal in similar circumstances by holding that before a candidate could be held of having resorted to cheating, it was essential to inform him not only about the analysis carried out by experts but also of the pattern discerned therefrom as also the specific reasons for coming to the conclusion that the said pattern lead to the inference of a very high probability of the candidate having indulged in malpractice. The Court held that unless this entire information was disclosed to the candidates, the mere allegation that their candidature was being cancelled on the basis of post-exam analysis done by experts was in viola