New Delhi, Apr 13 (PTI) The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a plea filed by several candidates seeking reservation under the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) category in an Uttar Pradesh recruitment process, holding that invalid income certificates cannot be the basis for claiming such a benefit.
A bench of Justice Manoj Misra and Justice Prasanna B Varale was hearing a petition filed by Poonam Dwivedi, along with other candidates, challenging an Allahabad High Court order rejecting their contention.
Upholding the high court’s decision, the bench said the candidates failed to furnish valid EWS certificates for the relevant financial year as required under the recruitment rules.
In an order, the court said, “If the certificate(s) relied upon by the appellants were not in respect of the financial year prior to the year of the application and were issued prior to even closure of the relevant financial year, there was an error apparent on the face of those certificates “…therefore, in our view, the respondents were justified in rejecting the claim of the appellants based on those certificates,” it said.
The case arose from recruitment to over 9,000 posts of female health workers in the state, where certain candidates — who had applied under the EWS category — were excluded from the final selection list despite clearing the written examination.
The candidates argued that discrepancies in their certificates were due to errors by the issuing authorities and confusion regarding the applicable financial year.
Rejecting the contention, the bench noted that the certificates were either issued before the closure of the relevant financial year or pertained to the wrong period.
“This court held that when a certificate is sought in respect of a particular financial year, a certificate of a different financial year goes to the root of the eligibility of a candidate,” it said.
The court emphasised that for availing EWS reservation, the income and asset certificate must relate to the financial year preceding the year of application and must be valid as on the cut-off date.
“In that light, even the certificate of Sunita Kumari (petitioner) was invalid for claiming the benefit of reservation. In such circumstances, we do not find any good reason to interfere with the order passed by the high court,” the court said.
It also held that candidates could not shift the blame to authorities for issuing incorrect certificates, particularly when most of them had obtained the documents even before the advertisement was issued and could have secured fresh ones in compliance with the eligibility conditions.
The bench further reiterated that eligibility conditions in public recruitment must be strictly adhered to, and even minor discrepancies in documents can lead to rejection, especially in large-scale selection processes handled through automated systems.
Highlighting the need for procedural discipline, the court said challenges to such rejections should not ordinarily be entertained as they could delay recruitment and adversely affect thousands of aspirants. PTI SKM SJK RHL
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