IMPORTANT POINT
The court established that compliance with application submission deadlines is mandatory, and failure to meet these deadlines, regardless of the reasons, results in disqualification from the recruitment process.

JUDGMENT :

AJIT KUMAR, J.

1. Heard Sri Thakur Prasad Dubey, learned counsel for the petitioner and Sri Sanjay Kumar Om, learned counsel for the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission.

2. Petitioner before this Court has been an applicant against the advertisement issued for the post of Assistant Private Secretary in Uttar Pradesh Secretariat advertised by the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission on 19th September, 2023. It was prescribed under the advertisement that soon after submitting the online application, the printout of the hard copy of the said application shall be drawn by the petitioner and shall submit all the requisite documents regarding essential qualification on or before 5th April, 2024. It was further noticed under the advertisement that beyond the prescribed date no application will be entertained.

3. It is an admitted case of the petitioner that he could not submit the offline application form along with documents but he submits that since it was a sheer mistake inadvertently committed and since he had qualified the preliminary examination his candidature ought not to have been cancelled.

4. Per contra, it is submitted by learned counsel appearing for the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission that under the advertisement there was a clear condition stipulated that till 5:00 pm on 5th April, 2024 the hard copy of the application should be submitted along with documents and if it were not submitted/ deposited in the office of Public Service Commission, then no further time will be allowed and no application shall be entertained subsequently.

5. Sri Om has argued that it is settled legal position that if a candidate fails to submit either application or requisite documents up to the last date prescribed under the advertisement, no further opportunity can be afforded to such candidate and for such negligence, may be due to inadvertence, subsequently application at the instance of such candidate cannot be allowed. He has also placed reliance upon the Full Bench judgment of this Court in the case of Rajendra Patel v. State of Uttar Pradesh and another, AIR 2015 All 161 (FB), where a candidate failed to submit the offline form within the prescribed period. In the said judgment the Court has very categorically held that once the conditions stipulated under the advertisement are not fulfilled the department cannot be held liable for the same and candidate will have to suffer.

6. I have perused the records and find it to be an admitted position that petitioner in his knowledge failed to submit offline applications along with requisite documents to Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission till 5:00 of the last date i.e. 5th April, 2024. The Full Bench of this Court in the case of Rajendra Patel (supra) was constituted to decide following reference:

“Where the Commission requires the submission of an online application as well as the submission of a hard copy of the application together with all the requisite documents by a prescribed last date and candidates are placed on notice that the candidature of an applicant who has failed to complete all the prescribed stages by the last date would be rejected, would it be a correct position in law to hold that the Commission is bound to entertain the application though the hard copy together with the documents was received after the last date prescribed merely on the ground that the documents had been dispatched before the last date of the receipt of the application.”

7. Holding the judgment of Division Bench in the case of Nirbhay Kumar v. Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (Special Appeal No. 541 of 2014 decided on 30th May, 2014) not to be laying down correct law, the Full Bench (supra) making observations upon the principles of law on the point, concluded thus:

“Even on merits, we are not inclined to accept the correctness of the principle which has been laid down in Nirbhay Kumar (supra) that the submission of a hard copy of the application together with the accompanying