The court established that age relaxation provisions in recruitment rules apply universally to all candidates, ensuring fairness in the selection process.

Order :

(ARUN MONGA, J.)

1. Under challenge herein is an order dated 29.03.2019 (Annex.3), vide which, the candidature of the petitioner on the post of Safai Employee was rejected on the ground that petitioner was beyond the maximum age prescribed in the advertisement dated 13.04.2018.

2. Brief facts of the case are that the respondents initiated a recruitment process for the post of Safa Employees in accordance with Rajasthan Municipalities (Safai Employees Service) Rules, 2012 (for short the Rules of 2012 only) vide an advertisement dated 13.04.2018. Being eligible, petitioner submitted her application for the post of Safai Employee. On being found successful, she was issued appointment letter vide order dated 02.09.2018. However, vide order dated 29.03.2019 (Annex.3), respondent no.2 canceled the appointment of the petitioner on the ground that she is overage.

3. Relevant stand taken by the respondents in their reply is that petitioner filed the present writ petition against the order dated 29.03.2019, which terminated her services on the grounds of being overage for the post of Safai Karamchari and submitting false or contradictory information during the Committee’s review. The appointment order clearly stated in condition no. 3 that if any documents or facts submitted by the candidate were found to be false, the appointment would be cancelled without prior notice. The petitioner mentioned her date of birth as 01.07.1977 in her application and submitted a transfer certificate from Government Senior Secondary School, Shetrawa, Jodhpur, dated 10.11.1991, confirming the same date. However, according to the Rajasthan Municipalities (Safai Karamchari Service) Rules, 2012, the candidate must not exceed the age of 35 years on the last date of submission of the application, with a 5-year age relaxation for SC/ST candidates. Based on the petitioner’s own submitted certificate, she does not meet the age limit criteria. Additionally, the petitioner applied under the OBC category but failed to submit the required application fee. As per the advertisement dated 13.04.2018, the fee was Rs.100, but the petitioner only submitted Rs.50, leading to her application being rejected for insufficient payment. When given an opportunity to explain the discrepancies, the petitioner could not provide a satisfactory explanation, resulting in the cancellation of her appointment. Therefore, the petition lacks merit and should be dismissed.

4. In the aforesaid backdrop, I have heard the rival contentions and have gone through the case record as well as annexures appended therewith.

5. First and foremost, my attention has been to Clause-8 of the Advertisement, English translation of which, reads as under:-

“8. The Department of Local Self-Government had previously issued advertisement numbers 1/12 dated 25.05.12 and 2/12 dated 31.05.12 for the recruitment of sanitation workers. In municipalities where the recruitment process was completed but eligible candidates were not appointed, separate notifications have been issued by the department regarding the cancellation of the above-mentioned advertisements 1/12 dated 25.05.12 and 2/12 dated 31.05.12. The applications submitted in these municipalities in response to the above advertisements will be included in the new recruitment advertisement number 1/2018. The list of such candidates will be posted on the notice board of the concerned municipal body by 21.04.18, and these applicants will be considered within the prescribed age limit and their applications will be included in the recruitment process, with decisions made by the respective municipality.”

6. Having perused the aforesaid clause, I am unable to persuade myself with the triteness of the argument of learned counsel for the respondents that the aforesaid clause is applicable only to those candidates who were not successful in the selection process. To say the least, this argument is highly arbitrary, inasmuch as the entire selection process was scrapped, me