IMPORTANT POINT
Minor discrepancies in recruitment documents should not lead to disqualification if no malafide intent is present, emphasizing the need for a balanced approach in administrative processes.

JUDGMENT :

SHALINDER KAUR, J.

1. The present writ petitions, under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, have been filed by the petitioners, who are candidates aspiring to join the Indian Coast Guard/respondent no.1 as Navik (General Duty), impugning the recruitment advertisement issued by the respondent no.1 for the 02/2022 batch, as their candidature was rejected vide three emails, all dated 05.07.2022.

2. Before we delve into the facts leading to the filing of the present petitions, it may be necessary to point out that the candidature of the petitioners in W.P.(C) 11443/2023 and W.P.(C) 13920/2023 was rejected on the ground of an alleged discrepancy in their class 10th marks, whereas the candidature of the petitioner in W.P.(C) 14099/2023 was rejected on the ground of an alleged mismatch in the name of the petitioner’s father on the Caste Certificate and discrepancy in the date of issue of the class 10th certificate.

3. As all the three petitions involve similar issues of law and facts, they are being taken up together for their disposal by way of this common judgment. For the sake of brevity, we will refer to the petitioner in W.P.(C) 11443/2023 as petitioner no.1, the petitioner in W.P.(C) 13920/2023 as petitioner no.2, and the petitioner in W.P.(C) 14099/2023 as petitioner no.3.

4. The petitioner no.1 hails from Pingadi village in Visakhapatnam and belongs to the Koppula Velama, which is recognized as a backward class under the Other Backward Class (OBC) (non-creamy layer) category by the Government of India. The petitioner no.2 hails from the Gopalapatnam village in Visakhapatnam and belongs to the Kemapre or Redoika (OBC) category, and the petitioner no.3 hails from the Phakeerupeta village of Srikakulam district and belongs to the Yadava (Golla) community, which is also recognized as an OBC (non-creamy layer) by the Government of India. All the three petitioners are natives of the State of Andhra Pradesh.

5. The respondent no.1, through a recruitment advertisement issued on 04.01.2022, had invited applications for appointment to the post of Navik (Domestic Branch), Navik (General Duty), and Yantrik for the 02/2022 batch. The petitioners had applied for the post under the OBC category on 07.01.2022, 11.01.2022 and 05.01.2022, respectively.

6. Subsequently, a provisional admit card for Stage-I was issued to the petitioners, and they appeared for their written examination, which they qualified at the end of March, 2022. Upon clearing the said examination, the petitioners uploaded their documents as mentioned in Clause 7 of the said recruitment advertisement. On uploading these documents, the petitioners became eligible to download their provisional admit cards for the Stage-II examination and appeared at Visakhapatnam for the same. The petitioners also appeared for and passed the Physical Fitness Test (PFT) as well as the document verification stage.

7. It is the case of the petitioner no.1 and 2 that inadvertently, while calculating their percentage of marks obtained in class 10th, they multiplied their GPA by 10 instead of 9.5. However, the same was verified at the time of the document verification, and no mismatch was found. In the case of the petitioner no.3, owing to COVID-19, he was not in possession of his original class 10th mark sheet and, therefore, added an approximate date for the issuance of the same and informed the respondents as to his reason for doing so. This explanation was accepted by the respondents at the time of document verification. Since the respondents were satisfied with the documents produced by all the petitioners at Stage-II of the document verification, they were provisionally declared as having passed.

8. However, to the utter shock of the petitioners, the respondent no.2, through its impugned emails dated 05.07.2022, informed the petitioners that their candidature was rejected. The petitioner nos.1 and 2 were informed that their candidature was rejected on the ground that they had entered fa