The court upheld administrative discretion to modify recruitment processes, affirming that a 'written test' includes objective assessments and that dispensing with a Descriptive Test was justified due to urgency without violating constitutional rights.

JUDGMENT

Navin Chawla, J. This appeal has been filed challenging the Judgment and Order dated 20.04.2021 passed by the learned Single Judge of this Court in W.P.(C) 7122 of 2020, titled Abhishek Kumar v. Office of District and Sessions Judge (HQ) & Anr., dismissing the said writ petition of the appellant herein.

2. By way of the above-mentioned writ petition, the appellant had sought for the following reliefs:

"a. To quash the Circular dated 19-08-2020 and the previous and subsequent circulars of the respondents inviting the candidates directly for Interview by bypassing/dispensing with the Descriptive Test of 100 marks and reducing the Interview to 12 Marks being illegal, arbitrary and violative of Article 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India and prevalent rules and advertisement issued by the respondents and quash all subsequent steps taken by the respondent thereto; and

b. direct the respondents to conduct as well as complete the examination and selection process as per the notified scheme and selection procedure given in the said Advertisement dated 14-09-2020 and prevalent Rules as applicable."

3. The respondent no. 1 issued a Vacancy Notice/Advertisement dated 14.09.2020 for recruitment to various cadre posts inter alia including 161 vacancies for the post of Junior Judicial Assistant (`JJA') in the establishment of the District & Sessions Courts and Family Courts, New Delhi, with respect to which the writ petition and the present appeal relates.

4. The Advertisement prescribed a four-Tier selection process/scheme of examination. Tier-I was an Objective Test containing questions of General English and Comprehension, General Knowledge (including Current Affairs) and General Intelligence, for a total 120 marks. Tier-II was a Skill Test (Typing Test) and was qualifying in nature. Tier-III was a Descriptive Test, and the Advertisement prescribed the following conditions insofar as Tier-III was concerned:

"Tier-III: Descriptive Test for the posts of Junior Judicial Assistant & Data Entry Operator

The candidates who qualify the Skill Test will be called for a "Descriptive Test" of English language (Total 100 Marks). It would consist of Essay (300 words = 50 Marks), Grammar (30 Marks) and Translation (25 words = 20 Marks). Minimum passing marks for General Category candidates will be 50% (i.e., 50 Marks out of 100 Marks) and for Reserved Category candidates will be 45% (I.e., 45 Marks out of 100 Marks). Duration of the test will be of 120 Minutes.

The Descriptive test will be conducted for the posts of Sr. Personal Assistant, Personal Assistant, Junior Judicial Assistant, & Date Entry Operator. However, District & Sessions Judge (HQ), Delhi reserves the right to modify or dispense with any stage of the selection process, if deemed appropriate especially in view of the number of applications received for any particular post and as may be permissible under Delhi District Court (Establishment) Rules, 2012."

5. Tier-IV was an Interview which was prescribed to be of 30 marks. The minimum passing marks in the interview for the General Category candidates was 12 marks while for the Reserved Category (including PwD) candidates was 10 marks.

6. A total of 24,173 candidates applied for the 161 posts of JJA, for which Tier-I (Objective Test) was conducted on 29.11.2019. A total of 14,256 candidates appeared in the same. 4,471 candidates, including the appellant herein, qualified in the Tier-I test with the appellant being placed at serial number 1606, having secured 87.5 marks out of 120 marks in the unreserv