IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Date of Decision : December 02, 2025 BALWINDER KAUR AND ANOTHER -PETITIONERS V/S STATE OF PUNJAB AND OTHERS -RESPONDENTS CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE KULDEEP TIWARI Present: Mr. Deepak Singh Saini, Advocate (Legal Aid Counsel) with Ms. Vamika Johar, Advocate for the petitioner No.2.

Mr. Sahil R. Bakshi, A.A.G., Punjab.

Ms. Isha Goyal, Advocate for the respondent No.3.

***

KULDEEP TIWARI, J. (ORAL)

1. Through instituting the present writ petition, the petitioners have knocked on the doors of this Court, seeking directions to the respondent(s) to consider their candidature for TET-2017 (Paper-I) under the BC Category instead of the General Category.

2. The gravamen of the petitioners’ grievance is that, although they belong to the BC Category, their category was inadvertently selected as General Category while filling up the online application form for TET- 2017 by the Cyber Cafe Operator. Consequently, they contested the examination under the General Category, securing 84 and 86 marks respectively, while the cutoff marks were 90 for the General Category and

82 for the BC and SC Categories.

3. Learned counsel for the petitioner No.2 contends that the petitioners’ future should not be prejudiced due to a bona fide error in selection of their category, more so when the error was committed not by the petitioners themselves but by a third party, namely the Cyber Cafe Operator. It is submitted that, had their candidature been considered under the BC Category, they would indisputably have met the prescribed cut-off of 82 marks, having secured 84 and 86 marks respectively. To fortify his submissions, he places reliance on the judgment of the Division Bench of the Delhi High Court in W.P. (C) No. 9230 of 2022, decided on 03.06.2022, titled “Ms Charu Kain vs. High Court of Delhi”, wherein, considering a bona fide mistake attributable to a third party, permission was granted to convert the candidate’s category from General to Scheduled Caste.

4. Per contra, learned State counsel, who is assisted by learned counsel for the respondent No.3, submits that the issue inhering the present writ petition is no more res integra. It is submitted that a Division Bench of this Court, while rendering the verdict dated 15.12.2014 in CWP-23185-2014, titled “Usha Dhillon vs. State of Haryana and others”, has already considered all these aspects and held that such permission cannot be granted, that too at the belated stage, specifically when the result of the said examination has already been declared. Reliance is also placed on the intra court verdict dated 07.07.2015 drawn in LPA-1910-2014, titled “State of Punjab and another Vs. Shaveta Kamboj”, the relevant portion whereof is extracted hereunder:-

“The argument that there was no relaxation for the candidates belonging to Other Backward Classes in the advertisement in the matter of fee or for any other purpose and therefore, the respondent did not disclose that she belongs to Other Backward Classes is not tenable. The respondent applied as a General Category candidate though there was a column that ‘Whether the candidate belongs to Other Backward Classes?’, but once the respondent has chosen to apply and appear in the examination as a General Category candidate, she cannot claim benefit of Other Backward Classes after the result was declared. The relaxation is to the candidates who appeared as Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes or Other Backward Classes candidates and not to a candidate who appeared as a General Category candidate but subsequently claims to be a candidate belonging to the reserved category.

Another argument raised by learned counsel for the respondent is that a Single Bench of this Court in CWP No.2998 of 2013 titled Baljeet Singh v. State of Punjab and others, decided on 22.05.2013, has granted benefit of relaxation of 5% marks to a candidate who appeared in the test as a General Category Candidate. A perusal of the judgment (Annexure P-8) shows