Candidates must remain vigilant regarding recruitment processes and comply with stipulated procedures; failure to do so results in forfeiture of rights to relief.

JUDGMENT

Mr. G.S.Sandhawalia, ACJ. (Oral)

Delay Application

Application for condonation of delay of 66 days in filing the appeal is allowed, in view of averments made in the application duly supported by affidavit.

2. Delay condoned.

3. CM stands disposed of.

Main Case

4. Consideration in the present letters patent appeal is to the judgment dated 31.01.2024 passed by the learned Single Judge in CWP-2025-2024 whereby, the learned Single Judge chose not to grant any relief to the petitioner as such.

5. The relief claimed as such was that reasonable opportunity to the petitioner had not been granted for consideration in the process of selection against Advertisement No.5 of 2019 (Annexure P-1) for the post of Clerk. The petitioner could not give his application for coming in the zone of consideration in the revised list being out of station and the advertisement being of the year 2019. No message or e-mail being sent to him was the ground as such for filing the writ petition.

6. The learned Single Judge noticed that 4858 posts of Clerks of Group- C were to be filled in various Departments/Corporations/Boards etc., as per the advertisement. The Commission had revised the result on 17.05.2022 and the candidates had been called for scrutiny of documents. The information had been posted on the website and the candidates were required to get the information from the website only and no individual letters were to be sent. It was held that it was the duty of the petitioner to remain vigilant with regard to his application submitted by regularly visiting the website to know whether he was to appear for scrutiny of documents or not. It was noticed that the ground in the writ petition as such was contrary to the terms and conditions of the advertisement and the petitioner should have been more vigilant to visit the website to know the updates being posted by the respondent-Commission. Having not appeared for the scrutiny of documents, he could not have been called for further participation and the non-appearance as such of the petitioner for scrutiny of documents was due to his own fault and not that of the respondent. The selection having already been finalized and candidates having been recruited, no relief was, thus, granted.

7. Counsel for the appellant has repeated the arguments as such that since the advertisement was of the year 2019, the was no intimation regarding the result being revised on 17.05.2022 and, therefore, the appellant had lost contact and was not aware.

8. We have perused the advertisement in question. Apparently, the terms of the advertisement are very clear vide which the petitioner is bound, as has been held time and again by various Full Benches of this Court. Six Full Benches of this Court in Amardeep Singh Sahota v. State of Punjab 1993 (2) PLR 212, Raj Singh v. Maharishi Dayanand University 1994 (2) S.C.T. 766, Sachin Gaur v. Punjabi University 1996(1) S.C.T. 837, Rahul Prabhakar v. Punjab Technical University, Jalandhar 1997(3) S.C.T. 526, Indu Gupta v. Director of Sports, Punjab 1999(4) S.C.T. 113 and Rupinder Singh and others v. The Punjab State Board of Technical Education & Industrial Training, Chandigarh and others 2001(2) S.C.T. 726 have held to that effect. The relevant observations made in Rahul Prabhakar's case (supra) read as under:-

"7. A Full Bench of this Court in Amardeep Singh Sahota v. State of Punjab, (1993) 4 SLR 673 : 1993(4) SCT 328 (P&H) (FB) had to consider the scope and binding force of the provisions contained in the prospectus. The Bench took the view that the prospectus issued for admission to a course, has the force of law and it was not open to alteration. In Raj Singh v. Maharshi Dayanand University, 1994 (4) RSJ 289 : 1994(2) SCT 766 (P&H) (FB) another Full Bench of this Court took the view that a candidate will have to be taken to be bound by the information supplied in the admission form and cannot be allowed to take a stand that suits him at a given time. The Full Bench approved