Fair opportunity must be afforded to candidates for rectifying documentation discrepancies in admission processes, with timely communication being crucial; cancellation of candidature based on unreasonable timelines is not justified.

JUDGMENT

Vikas Mahajan, J. The petitioner, who belongs to the OBC (Non-creamy layer) category took JEE(Mains) 2022 Examination, on the basis of which he was allotted a seat at Respondent no.4/Indian Institute of Information Technology, Vadodara, Gujarat, in Round-I of seat allocation, by Respondent no.3/Central Seat Allocation Board [in short `CSAB'].

2. On allocation of the seat, the petitioner was required to submit his documents for online verification. Accordingly, on 01.11.2022, the petitioner submitted his following certificates online:

(i) Educational certificates,

(ii) OBC certificate dated 01.09.2021 indicating that the petitioner belongs to `Khati community' which is recognized as backward class under the Central List.

(iii) OBC-NCL certificate dated 04.08.2022.

3. The OBC-NCL certificate dated 04.08.2022 [Annexure P-7(colly), page 40], issued by the Tehsildar Rewari, was not depicting the caste of the petitioner.

4. The petitioner received e-mail communication from Respondent no.3/CSAB on 02.11.2022 at about 04:42 pm stating that discrepancy has been found in his uploaded documents and the petitioner was called upon to login on the portal of R-3/CSAB and remove the discrepancy. The e-mail communication reads as under:

5. Simultaneously, the petitioner also received text message on 02.11.2022 at 04:42 pm stating that discrepancy has been found in the uploaded documents and asking the petitioner to remove the discrepancy in the documents before the deadline, which reads as under:

6. The petitioner also received a communication 02.11.2022 from the document verifying centre, which in the present case is respondent no.5/Jawahar Lal Nehru University, intimating the petitioner about the cancellation of his seat with the remark that "Caste is not mentioned in the uploaded certificate. Category change from OBC to General". The document verification date was mentioned as 02.11.2022, 04:45 p.m. Communication from document verifying centre reads as under:

Again, the petitioner received another communication few minutes later at 04:57 p.m. from Respondent No. 3/CSAB stating that petitioner's documents have been verified successfully.

7. It is the case of the petitioner that the rectified OBC-NCL certificate was sent by him through mail to CSAB on the same day i.e. 02.11.2022 at 06:30 pm [Annexure P-8 (colly) at page 45], which reads as under:

The submission of the said certificate was followed by a video call on 03.11.2022 by the petitioner with the concerned officials of CSAB, who orally instructed to upload a fresh OBC-NCL certificate. Accordingly, the petitioner once again uploaded the rectified certificate on the portal of respondent no.3/CSAB.

8. Sequel to above, the petitioner received an intimation from CSAB that no seat has been allotted to the petitioner in Round-II.

9. Mr. Kaushal Yadav, the learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the seat allotted to the petitioner has been cancelled only for the reason that the petitioner failed to upload the documents before the deadline i.e., 02.11.2022 at 05:00 p.m. He submits that an intimation received on 02.11.2022 at 04:42 p.m. mentioned the details of the portal to be visited by the petitioner to removing the discrepancy but the same did not indicate any timelines nor any timelines were mentioned in the text message. He further submits that the petitioner was also mislead by the subsequent e-mail received at 04:57 pm on the same day stating that petitioner's documents have been verifie