IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Date of decision: 16.02.2026 Gautam Setia and others ….Petitioners Versus State of Haryana and others ….Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE KULDEEP TIWARI Present: Mr. Rahul Gahlian, Advocate, for the petitioner.

Mr. Bhupender Singh, Addl. A.G., Haryana.

Mr. Sahil R. Bakshi, AAG, Punjab.

Mr. Akshay Bhan, Senior Advocate, with Mr. Ranjit Singh Kalra, Advocate, for respondent No.5.

Mr. Saurav Verma, Advocate, for respondent No.6.

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KULDEEP TIWARI, J. (Oral)

1) The petitioners, who could not qualify for the next stage of the ongoing selection process, being conducted by the respondent- Society for Centralized Recruitment of Staff in Subordinate Courts, have rushed to this Court by way of instant writ petition, laying challenge to the legality of the notices dated 23.01.2026 (Annexures P-5 and P-6), vide which, lists of the shortlisted candidates have been published to appear for the English Shorthand & Transcription Test and Spreadsheet Test.

2) The notices (supra) have been sought to be quashed, fundamentally, on the following twin grounds:-

i) They violate the terms of the advertisements dated 25.03.2025 (Annexure P-1) and 05.04.2025 (Annexure P-2); and ii) They deprive large number of candidates, at the very threshold, without testing their core stenography competence.

3) Further, the petitioners also pray for quashing the application of Computer Based Test, and normalization method, besides praying for a direction upon the Selection Committee to reconsider and rationalize the written qualifying cut-off, keeping in view the skill-based nature of the post, and allow them to participate in the next stage of the selection process. In essence, the case, as sought to be set up by the petitioners, is that there is no rationale behind the Computer Based Test for recruiting the stenographers.

4) Learned counsel for the petitioners, while referring to the previous advertisement dated 17.08.2021, for the same posts, challenge the rationality of the Computer Based Test, which has been introduced in the current selection process. Proceeding further, he asserts that earlier, there was no criteria of any Computer Based Test, containing syllabus of General Knowledge and English Composition for qualifying the screening test for the posts of Stenographer Grade-III. He submits that, as a matter of fact, the post of stenographer is purely skill-centric, where the shorthand speed, accuracy, comprehension and transcription ability constitute the real measure of merit. Thus, there is no nexus between the specialization attached to the post in question and the Computer Based Test. He concludes by submitting that a list with higher cut-off marks has been prepared, depriving the petitioners, who are more meritorious, from entering the second stage of the process.

5) This Court has heard learned counsel for the parties, and perused the record.

6) At the outset, this Court has accosted learned counsel for the petitioners, as to how, the instant writ petition is maintainable, in view of the fact that the petitioners could not secure any place in the list of shortlisted candidates, and as such, how can they challenge the legality of the Computer Based Test. In response, he failed to satisfy this Court by pointing out any exceptional circumstances or referring to any judicial pronouncement, in this regard.

7) While proceeding further with the matter, this Court has also examined the advertisements, specifically the clause which provides ‘Mode of Selection.’ (Clause 12 in advertisement dated 25.03.2025, and Clause 14 in the advertisement dated 05.04.2025). Per the said clause, each candidate is required to take Computer Based Test of 60 marks, comprising of 60 objective type multiple choice questions on English Composition and General Knowledge. The merit of the test shall be prepared, based on normalized marks (formula thereof is also delineated in the advertisement itself). It also stipulates, that the candid