Discrepancies in educational qualifications do not justify automatic cancellation of appointments without a thorough inquiry and due process.

Order :

(DINESH MEHTA, J.)

1. The petitioners involved in the present batch of writ petitions have approached this Court challenging the respective notices issued to them by the concerned District Education Officer seeking to cancel their appointments on various allegations including that there are discrepancies in the degrees which they had relied upon for the purpose of seeking appointment and that there were difference in the particulars which were provided in the online application forms if compared with the degrees which they produced at the time of document verification. The notices issued to the petitioners also contain various allegations which include discrepancies either in the roll numbers, year of passing, date of declaration of result or in name of the universities, etc.

2. Mr. Kotwani, learned counsel for the petitioners submitted that on being found meritorious, all the petitioners were called for document verification and the recruiting agency, namely, Rajasthan Staff Selection Board (hereinafter referred to as ‘RSSB or Board’) conducted a thorough document verification and recommended their names to the State which in turn gave them appointments.

3. While arguing that since document verification had been conducted and the State had got verification of their degrees from the concerned universities, learned counsel argued that the respondents are going to terminate services of the petitioners or cancel their appointments on trivial technical issues, which have surfaced later on.

4. He submitted that each of the petitioners have filed their reply/response in furtherance to the notice issued to them, but they have least hope of getting due consideration by the respondents, as they are pre-determined to cancel petitioners’ appointments as has been done in various other cases.

5. Mr. Kotwani invited Court’s attention towards the appointment orders issued to each of the petitioners and highlighted that the respondents have clearly mentioned that the appointments were being offered on the basis of the genuine report given by the concerned Universities.

6. On 27.01.2025, upon hearing rival counsel, this Court had found a prima -facie case in petitioners’ favour and directed the respondents not to take any decision prejudicial to petitioners’ right.

7. During the pendency of the proceedings, the Board was directed to file an affidavit stating whether the document verification was conducted by the Board and if so, the manner and the extent it was carried out.

8. In response to Court’s direction, an additional affidavit has been submitted by the Secretary of the Board, inter alia, accepting the fact that the document verification was done by the Board, however, with a caveat that the committee which conducted document verification comprised of three members nominated by the Education Department.

9. Mr. Patel, learned counsel for the Board invited Court’s attention towards the stipulation made in the communication dated 31.05.2023 sent along with the list of recommendees and underscored that the State was cautioned to verify the genuineness of the degrees issued by various Universities such as

(I) Singhania University, Jhunjhunu;

(ii) OPJS University, Churu;

(iii) Sunrise University, Alwar, etc.

10. Learned counsel for the Board submitted that the State had ensured itself about genuineness of the degrees by sending a letter to such universities, but later on it was revealed that the universities from which the petitioners claimed to have obtained degrees had connived with the petitioners and fraudulently granted degrees to the petitioners.

11. He submitted that large number of candidates have filled in their application forms asserting that they have obtained their B.P.Ed. Degrees from such universities whereas they did not have that much intake capacity. He contended that 2078 candidates claimed to have obtained their B.P.Ed. Degrees from JS University, Shikohabad, Uttar Pradesh, whereas said JS University has the maximum limit of 480 s