The discretion of the rule-making authority to fix a cut-off date for age limit and the inability to relax the cut-off date due to delay in advertisement publication or hardships faced by the aggrieved persons.

JUDGMENT :

At the request of the learned counsel for the petitioners, the defects as pointed out by the office are ignored.

The present writ petition has been filed for issuance of direction upon the respondents to fix the cut-off date for upper age limit either from the date of existence of vacancies or in alternative from the date when the present examination was scheduled to be held earlier in the year 2019 or before, by substituting the same in the Clause-5 of the advertisement being Advertisement No. 06 of 2021 (Amended) published on 03.02.2022 inviting applications for appointment to the posts of Junior Engineer (Electrical, Civil, Mechanical and Agricultural engineering trades). Further prayer has been made to extend the time for submission of their application forms.

2. Learned counsel for the petitioners submits that the Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission (JSSC) published advertisement on its official website for conducting Jharkhand Diploma Level Combined Competitive Examination-2021 being Advertisement No. 06/2021 for making appointment to the posts of Junior Engineer (Electrical), Junior Engineer (Civil) and Junior Engineer (Mechanical) in Urban Development and Housing Department, Government of Jharkhand, Ranchi and the cut-off date for calculating the minimum and maximum age limit was fixed as 01.08.2021. Thereafter, amended Advertisement No. 06/2021 was published on 03.02.2022 wherein apart from the previous vacancies, the vacancies for the posts of Junior Engineer vacant in other departments such as Drinking water and Sanitation Department, Water Resources Department, Road Construction Department, Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Co-operative Department of Government of Jharkhand were also included providing the cut-off date as 01.08.2021 for calculating the minimum and maximum age limit regarding vacancies of earlier department i.e., Urban Development and Housing, however, the said cut-off date regarding vacancies of newly added departments was fixed as 01.08.2022. Earlier, the JSSC had conducted the examination in the year 2014 for the same post and at that time, the cut-off date for calculating the minimum and maximum age limit was fixed as 01.08.2014 and thereafter, no competitive examination for filling up the vacant posts of Junior Engineer was ever conducted for all these 7 years. It is further submitted that before 2014, the advertisement for the same post was published in the year 2012 and only after a gap of 2 years, the next advertisement was published by the respondent-JSSC. However, for all these 7 years, the respondent-State/JSSC has not taken any examination or published any advertisement for filling up the post of junior engineer, rather they kept appointing the junior engineers only on contractual basis though permanent vacancies of sanctioned post existed since 2015. As per calendar available on the website of JSSC, it was shown that examination would be conducted in April 2019, however, the same was not conducted. Due to not taking regular examination for filling the vacant posts of Junior Engineer, the petitioners have become age barred with respect to the cut off date of upper age limit which has been fixed as 01.08.2022 in the amended advertisement and for the said reason, the petitioners being ineligible are unable to fill up forms of the said examination. Moreover, the respondent-State also could not conduct any examination since March 2020 due to spread of COVID-19 pandemic and hence, they lost 2 precious years of their career. The aforesaid situation was not in control of anyone as the same was an act of God, for which the upper age limit of the petitioners should have been considered. The respondent-State in other competitive examination i.e., Civil Services Combined Competitive Examination, 2021, has fixed the upper age limit from the date when the vacancies were existing i.e., 01.08.2016, as no civil services examination was conducted in the State of Jharkhand from 2016 till 2021. Af