Participation must be adequately verified and considered without unjust dismissal based on technicalities when the evidence supports claims under sports quota.

COMMON ORDER:

Writ Petition No.25040 of 2025 is filed seeking the following relief:

“….to issue a Writ, order or direction, more particularly, one in nature of Writ of Mandamus declaring the action of respondents acting contrary to G.O.M.s 74 of 09.08.2012 by rejecting the petitioner's application without considering the certificates produced by me at the time of verification. The representation given to the authorities requesting to investigate the other certificates produced by me were kept aside. The certificates which they sought clarification from national body of soft ball unless this Honble Court intervenes and direct the respondent to re-verify the documents/certificates of produced by the petitioner to substantiate his participation in international-national-zonal- district and federation level competitions failing which the petitioner would be put to irreparable loss and hardship….”

2. Heard Sri N.Subba Rao, learned Senior Counsel representing Sri N.Pavan Kumar, learned counsel for the petitioner in W.P.Nos.25040 of 2025 and 106 of 2026 and Sri Posani Venkateswarlu, learned counsel representing Sri P.Sai Surya Teja, learned counsel for petitioner in W.P.No.32315 of 2025 and learned Advocate General for APPSC and Sri M.Vijaya Kumar, learned Senior Counsel representing Sri B.Manoj Kumar, learned counsel for impleaded respondent No.5 in W.P.No.32315 of 2025 and impleaded respondent No.8 in W.P.No.106 of 2026 and Sri J.Sudheer, learned counsel for impleaded respondent No.4 in W.P.No.32315 of 2025 and impleaded respondent No.7 in W.P.No.106 of 2026.

3. The petitioner participated pursuant to the notification issued by the APPSC for Group-II examinations. As he qualified in the examinations conducted by the APPSC and as he stood in meritorious candidates in sports quota and at the time of verification of certificates of meritorious candidates, the petitioner was called to submit the certificates for Group-II, tentative list was released on 13.08.2025, wherein the sports authorities of Andhra Pradesh rejected the candidature of the petitioner merely by mentioning that he went to Japan to represent the nation as a manager of the team but not as a player. Questioning the said action, the present writ petition is filed.

4. As per the certificates which were issued by the recognized sports associations, the petitioner is meritorious sports person for employment and entitled to consider the case under sports quota in Government institutions. He participated in 45^th Senior National Championship held at Bakshi Stadium, Srinagar from 04.11.2023 to 08.11.2023. The participation certificate issued to the petitioner was signed by the President of Softball Association of India and Secretary General, Softball Association of India and President of J & K Softball Association. He also relied on the certificates issued by Softball Association of India in respect of All India Inter Zonal National Softball Championship held at Ananthapuram from 11.03.2023 to 13.03.2023, 19^th South Zone Senior National Softball Championship, 2023 held from 03.03.2023 to 05.03.2023 and 8^th Senior Inter District Softball Championship held from 10.10.2021 to 12.10.2021. But surprisingly, the respondents have not considered any of the above certificates and only considering the certificate issued by Softball Association of India in participation of 11^th Men Softball Asia Cup 2022 held from 03.09.2022 to 06.09.2022, Kochi- Shimanto, Japan. In the panel prepared by the respondents, they have noted as against the petitioner stating that there is evidence that he was not a player but participated as team manager for sports achi