The court affirmed that waitlist panels must remain operative for one year to ensure compliance with recruitment fairness and prevent vacancies from remaining unfilled due to bureaucratic delays.

1. This petition has been filed, challenging the Order dated 27.02.2025 passed by the learned Central Administrative Tribunal, Principal Bench, New Delhi (hereinafter referred to as the ‘Tribunal’) in O.A. No.2410/2021, titled Sahil Lohchab & Ors. v. Delhi Subordinate Services Selection Board (DSSSB) & Ors., whereby the learned Tribunal allowed the abovementioned O.A. filed by the respondents herein, with the following directions: -

“24. We find that the DSSSB although has rightly maintained the panel for one year, however, it ought to have considered operation the same in terms of the DOP&T instructions referred to above.

25. Given the above, the present Original Application is allowed with direction to the respondent-DSSSB to consider the candidature of the applicants for appointment on the post of Warder (Male) as per their merit within six weeks from the date of receipt of a copy of this order. In case the applicant is otherwise eligible the DSSSB shall forward their dossier to user department for further action for appointment. No costs.”

FACTS OF THE CASE

2. The brief facts leading up to the filing of the present petition are, that the petitioner no. 1, issued a vacancy Notice No. 03/17 dated 24.10.2017, for recruitment to the post of Warder (Only for Male) (Post Code: 86/17) in the Prison Department, Govt. of NCT of Delhi (hereinafter referred to as the “Post”). In the said notice, a total of 401 vacancies were advertised, comprising UR 161, OBC – 140, SC – 70, ST – 30, and Ex-SM – 12. The last date for submission of the applications and prescribed cut-off date for determining the eligibility of candidates for the post was 21.11.2017. The respondent applied for the said post.

3. The Physical Endurance Test (in short “PET”) was conducted from 01.03.2019 to 16.04.2019, and results of qualified candidates of PET were declared vide Notice No. 781 dated 10.05.2019, with Corrigendum No. 782 vide dated 17.05.2019.

4. Thereafter, the Tier-I (G) computer based examination was conducted on 18.06.2019, and marks of the candidates were declared vide Notice No. 821 dated 25.09.2019, wherein the cut-off marks for the said post for uploading e-dossiers in UR and OBC categories were 108 and 81.5 marks respectively. The respondents scored the following marks-

S. No.

Name

Category

Marks

1.

Sahil Lohchab

OBC

93.50

2.

Hemant Singh Dagar

OBC

91.50

3.

Mratyunjaya Kumar

UR

114.25

5. The petitioners on the basis of dossiers submitted by the candidates, issued the first Result Notice bearing Notice No. 971 dated 12.03.2020, provisionally selecting 340 candidates for the appointment of the said post.

6. The petitioners then issued the second Result Notice bearing Notice No. 989 dated 10.06.2020, provisionally selecting 40 more candidates for the said post. A Supplementary Result Notice selecting 9 candidates was issued by the petitioners vide Notice No. 1019 dated 04.08.2020.

7. The names of the respondents did not appear in the said Result Notices and they were placed in the waitlist panel. The Supplementary Result Notice also declared that recruitment had been closed and waitlist panel of the candidates shall be valid up to 11.03.2021.

8. Thereafter, the respondents, filed applications under Right to Information Act, 2005 (hereinafter referred to as the “RTI”), regarding the recruitment for said post. The response to the application filed under RTI, was received on 30.09.2021, providing the details of the cancellation the cancellation of 53 dossiers between 04.03.2021 and 06.09.2021.

9. Aggrieved by the fact that the petitioners still did not operate the waitlist panel, the respondents approached the learned Tribunal by filing the aforementioned O.A., with the following prayers:-

“(i) set aside the impugned Result Notice No. 971 dated