The legal status of divorce is attained only upon the dissolution of marriage through a decree under the provisions of the Hindu Marriage Act, and the candidature of a person is to be reckoned on the date of furnishing the application form and/or the cut-off date given in the advertisement.

JUDGMENT

Dinesh Mehta, J. - By way of the present writ petition, the petitioner has challenged rejection of her candidature as Divorcee.

2. Precisely stated facts of the case are that the petitioner submitted her application form as Divorcee candidate pursuant to advertisement dated 06.10.2018, issued for the purpose of filling up posts of Ayurved Compounder/Nurse Junior Grade.

3. The last date of submission of application was 05.11.2018.

4. The petitioner submitted her online application form on 23.10.2018. The petitioner had already filed an application on 27.08.2018 under Section 13-B of the Hindu Marriage Act prior to submitting application form before the competent Family Court.

5. Concededly, the decree of divorce was granted to the petitioner on 16.04.2019.

6. The respondents have rejected petitioner's candidature as on the last date of furnishing application form i.e. 05.11.2018, she did not have a decree of divorce in her favour.

7. Mr. Nahar, learned counsel for the petitioner, challenging rejection of candidature of the petitioner, contended that the application under Section 13-B of the Hindu Marriage Act was filed on 27.08.2018 prior to submitting the application form though the decree of divorce was granted on 16.04.2019 after the application form was submitted, but the decree of divorce should relate back to the date of submitting the application for mutual divorce.

8. Mr. Shreyansh Mehta, learned counsel for the respondents, opposing petitioner's contention, submitted that not only as per the terms of advertisement even, on the basis of principles laid down by this Court, candidature of the petitioner is required to be reckoned on the cut-off date or on the last date of furnishing application form.

9. He argued that on the date of furnishing application form, the petitioner did not have a decree of divorce, therefore, she cannot be considered as a divorcee'.

10. Concededly, at the time of filling up the application form, the petitioner did not have a decree of divorce in her favour.

11. Hence, the petitioner cannot be treated to be a divorcee' and claim reservation meant for such category.

12. So far as arguments raised by Mr. Nahar, learned counsel for the petitioner that the petitioner had filed the application seeking divorce before the date of submitting her application form for the recruitment is concerned, the same does not cut any ice. The marriage can be treated to have dissolved only on issuance of decree of divorce by competent Court.

13. It is settled position of law that the candidature of a person is to be reckoned on the date of furnishing application form and/or the cut-off date given in the advertisement.

14. A gainful reference of the judgment dated 10.08.2017 rendered in the case of Suman Chuodhary Vs. State of Raj. & Ors. (S.B. Civil Writ Petition No.9649/2017) would be worthwhile and the same is being reproduced hereinfra:

"The condition of being a candidate belonging to a particular caste is by virtue of birth and the certificate is a mere documentary proof. Whereas the divorce is a judicial process and the marriage gets dissolved only on passing a decree under the provisions of Hindu Marriage Act, 1956. The incidence of divorce or status of divorcee is attained on the dissolution of marriage. The decree of divorce is not a certificate, but a foundation of divorce. A person would continue to belong to a particular caste or class, notwithstanding a caste certificate, but a person cannot be called a divorcee, unless a decree of divorce has been issued. As such there was no requirement of providing that the decree of divorce should be of a prior date. Same is the situation of widowhood. Conceiving such an expression much less providing, would be preposterous, 'that in case of a widow, the death certificate of husband of a candidate should be of a prior date than the date of advertisement. As far as the Division Bench judgment of this Court dated 30.08.2013 in case of Ms. Jamna Rajpurohit (supra