Full Text
HIGH COURT OF DELHI
Date of Decision: 19.12.2025
UNION PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION .....Petitioner
Through: Mr. R. V. Sinha, Mr. A. S.
Singh, Ms. Shriya Sharma and Ms. Jyoti Garg, Advs.
Through: Mr. Sachin Chauhan, Adv. for R1.
Mr. Satya Ranjan Swain CGSC
Mr.Vishwadeep, Advs. for R2 & R3.
HON'BLE MS. JUSTICE MADHU JAIN NAVIN CHAWLA, J. (ORAL)
JUDGMENT
1. Allowed, subject to all just exceptions. W.P.(C) 19290/2025 & CM APPL. 80514/2025, CM APPL. 80516/2025
2. This petition has been filed challenging the Order dated 24.07.2025 passed by the learned Central Administrative Tribunal, Principal Bench, New Delhi (hereinafter referred to as the ‘Tribunal’) in O.A. No. 3468/2024 titled Ujjwal Jaiswal v. Ministry of External Affairs Through its Secretary & Ors., allowing the O.A. filed by the respondents herein with the following directions: “Since, the parties i.e. applicant and respondent no. I are at addendum that the applicant did score 9.07 marks for assessment year 2016-2017, Considering the same, the applicant even then would have scored at least 90 or more than 90 marks out of 100. The Assessment Board of UPSC which has assessed the candidates had to consider the performance of the candidates not only in the LDCE but also their past performance as reported in the APAR. With this admission by the respondent no. 1 that there was a typographical error in reporting the marks for the assessment years, naturally, the assessment of the candidates by the Assessment Board of the UPSC is likely to undergo a change. In case the applicant is otherwise found fit for promotion as Section Officer for Grade-2. IFS-B, LDCE-2020 examination, he may be considered for promotion since 2020. Needless to mention that he shall get all notional benefits like seniority and fixation of pay and allowances. However, there will be no payment of arrears of pay on the principle of 'No work, No pay'. Let this exercise be completed within a period of two months from the date of receipt of certified copy of the order. In the circumstances. we deem it appropriate that the O.A. filed by the applicant be disposed of with direction to the UPSC to place the case of the applicant in the light of the admission of the Ministry of External Affairs and facts which have been noted by us above before the Assessment Board for revaluation and reassessment. The O.A. is disposed of in the aforesaid manner. However, there will be no order as to costs.”
3. To give a brief background of the facts in which the present petition arises, Department of Personnel & Training (DoP&T) issued a notification dated 17.07.2023 for conducting the Combined Section Officers (Grade ‘B’) Limited Departmental Competitive Examination for the years 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 for various categories, that is, Category-I to Category-XI, as mentioned in the notification/rules.
4. The examination consisted of two parts, which is, (i) written part, which carried 500 marks; and (ii) evaluation of record of service of the candidate, which carried 100 marks. The marks obtained in the evaluation of the record were admittedly to be counted for the ranking of the candidate.
5. APARs for the years 2016-17 to 2020-21 were called by the petitioner from the Cadre Controlling Authorities of the candidates.
6. Admittedly, the respondent no.2, which is the Cadre Controlling Authority for the respondent no. 1 herein, forwarded the APAR gradings of the officers including the respondent no. 1 herein to the petitioner. As far as the respondent no. 1 is concerned, it is again admitted that for the assessment year 2016-2017, it was reported as “No Reporting Certificate (NRC)” and therefore, as far as the respondent no. 1 is concerned, the APAR gradings for the period 2021-2022 was additionally forwarded to the petitioner.
7. On evaluation of the marks of the written examination and the service record, the petitioner declared the results on 13.10.2023. In the result, the respondent no. 1 was shown to have secured 322 marks, as against the last candidate of the General Category who was selected with 324 marks.
8. Aggrieved by his marking, the respondent no. 1 filed the above O.A. before the learned Tribunal.
9. Before the learned Tribunal, the respondent no. 2, that is, the Cadre Controlling Authority of the respondent no. 1, admitted that there was a typographical error in the APAR gradings forwarded to the petitioner. It is in fact stated that by a letter dated 10.11.2023, it had requested the petitioner to reconsider the result and issue a revised result for Category-II examination in which the respondent no. 1 had participated as there was a typographical error in the data submitted to the petitioner. We quote from the letter as under:
5. In this regard, it is requested that the Commission may kindly consider issuing revised result for SO LDCE 2020 for Category-II. It is also informed that three officials (02 UR; 01 SC) did not assume 2016-17 2017-18 2018-19 2019-20 2020-21 9 01/04 to 25/06 to 31/03/18- 9 01/04 to 15/07-9; 16/07 to 05/11- NRC; 06/11 to 31/03-9 charge as Section Officer after the results of LDCE 2018 in August 2023 and one official (1 SC) did not assume charge as Section Officer after the results of LDCE 2020 in October
2023. Shri Jaiswal would be adjusted against any of these available vacancies, or Ministry would create a supernumerary post, if required.”
10. Based on the above admission and taking into account that the ACR gradings had influenced the eventual marks of the candidates, the learned Tribunal disposed of the said O.A. with the above quoted directions. The petitioner is challenging the same by way of the present petition.
11. The learned counsel for the petitioner submits that the learned Tribunal has not considered the various submissions which had been raised by the petitioner to oppose the O.A. filed by the respondent no. 1. He submits that the Selection Committee awards its marks to the candidate on its own criteria adopted, and that the Cadre Controlling Authority has no role to play in the same. He submits that, therefore, the recommendation of the respondent no. 2 to reconsider the case of the respondent no. 1, was inconsequential.
12. He further submits that the assessment by the Selection Committee cannot be subjected to judicial review and the marks be reassessed by the learned Tribunal. In support, he places reliance on the order dated 03.01.2024 passed by the learned Tribunal in O.A. NO. 3781/2017, titled Ujjwala Pandey & Anr. v. Union of India Through the Secretary & Ors.
13. He further submits that the mere desire of the respondent no.2 to have the result re-evaluated cannot be a ground for reconsidering the case of the respondent no.1.
14. He further submits that the rules of examination are binding and mere hardship of a candidate cannot be a ground to relax the same.
15. He further submits that, having participated in the examination, the candidate cannot be allowed to challenge the selection process. In support, he places reliance on the Judgments of the Supreme Court in Union Public Service Commission v. Jawahar Santhkumar & Ors. (2020) 18 SCC 356, and in State of Uttar Pradesh v. Karunesh Kumar & Ors., 2022 SCC OnLine SC 1706.
16. He further draws our attention to Note 1 attached to the Appendix to the notification dated 17.07.2023, whereby the examination rules have been published, to submit that the same clearly states that the marks obtained in evaluation of record of service will not be called in question and no request for its re-assessment will be entertained under any circumstances, including on a change in APAR gradings etc. at a subsequent date.
17. On the other hand, the learned counsel for the respondent no. 1, who appears on advance notice of this petition, reiterates that in the examination process, the evaluation of the service record was to be carried out on the basis of the APAR gradings of the officers. The same was forwarded by the respondent no.2 as a Cadre Control Authority and it was admitted that there was a mistake in the same as far as the respondent no.1 is concerned, when it reported that the APAR assessment for the year 2016-2017 was not available. Because of the report of non-availability, the respondent no.1 was granted only 5 marks for the said year, instead of the APAR grading of 9.07. If the correct grading had been granted, the respondent no.1 would have made the cutoff marks.
18. He further submits that the respondent no. 2 admitted to this mistake and therefore, the petitioner cannot even maintain this petition.
19. He further submits that the respondent no. 1 is not challenging the rules of selection, but only seeks a proper implementation of the same.
20. He further submits that the learned Tribunal has also left it to the petitioner to re-assess the case of the respondent no.1 and therefore, the judgments cited by the learned counsel for the petitioner have no application to the facts of the case.
21. We have considered the submissions made by the learned counsels for the parties.
22. In the present case, it is admitted that in the selection process, 100 marks were allocated for evaluation of the record of service, which was to be based on APAR gradings of the officers available to the Assessment Board at the time of its meeting. It is also admitted that the respondent no. 2 while forwarding the APAR gradings of the officers, as far as the respondent no. 1 is concerned, made a mistake by reporting that for the assessment year 2016-2017, the APAR gradings was not available. The respondent no. 1 had admittedly secured APAR grading of 9.07 for the said year, but due to non-availability of such grading in the summary provided by the respondent no. 2 to the petitioner, the respondent no. 1 was awarded only ‘5’ marks for the assessment year 2016-2017, while his APAR grading of 2021-2022, which had been additionally sent by the respondent no. 2 to the respondent no. 1 and was again ‘9’, was ignored.
23. Based on an incorrect reporting that the APAR grading for the year 2016-17 was not available, though, the same had even been annexed in the records which were forwarded by the respondent no. 2 to the petitioner, the petitioner made an assessment of the candidates including the respondent no. 1.
24. It is stated that due to non-availability, the APAR grading of the respondent no.1 for the concerned year, that is, 2016-17, was marked as 5 instead of 9.07,, which was the actual grading of the respondent no. 1 for the said year, treating it as NRC.
25. Once the above is admitted, the entire assessment of the respondent no. 1 was incorrect and deserved a re-look by the petitioner.
26. The respondent no. 1 was not challenging the rules of examination nor asking the learned Tribunal to re-assess the merit of the respondent no. 1. The respondent no.1 was merely asking for a fair opportunity to be considered in the selection process, which is his right. The judgments cited by the petitioner therefore, would have no application to these facts.
27. As far as reliance on Note 1 of the examination rules is concerned, we quote the same as under: “Note 1 Marks obtained in evaluation of record of service (I.e. APARs of the officers available to the Assessment Board at the time of its meeting) will be counted for ranking. Once the APARs have been evaluated by the Assessment Boards, no request for its reassessment will be entertained under any circumstances including a change in APAR grading, etc. at a subsequent date.”
28. A reading of the above Note would show that not only is the marks obtained in the evaluation of the service records based on APAR, it is only intended to inform the candidates that in case there is a change in the APAR grading of a candidate after the assessment, the assessment will still be considered as final and shall not be revisited. In the present case, there was no change in the APAR grading of the respondent no. 1 post the assessment by the Selection Committee; the case was of a wrong evaluation done on the basis of the incorrect information supplied by the respondent no. 2. The admitted case was that the information supplied to the Selection Committee was incorrect, on the basis of which the assessment had been done. Once the input was wrong, the output had to be wrong and that is what was in challenge before the learned Tribunal. We fail to understand that how Note 1, therefore, can have any application to the facts of the case. In fact, on the contrary, Note 1 clearly shows that it is the APAR gradings of the officers which are an important input for the evaluation of the record of the service of the candidate.
29. While there can be no dispute on the proposition of law that the Selection Committee has full discretion to adopt a fair and reasonable manner of assessing the candidates and the same ordinarily will not be called in question while exercising powers of judicial review, in the present case, as is noted hereinabove, the assessment procedure was not in challenge before the learned Tribunal; what was in challenge was that the input on the basis of which the Selection Committee adopted the criteria for the respondent no. 1, was incorrect. The respondent no. 1 cannot be made to suffer for the same. As held in a catena of judgments, while a candidate has no right to selection, the candidate does certainly have a right to fair consideration, which in the present case was denied to the respondent no. 1.
30. The learned Tribunal has, in fact, left the evaluation of the case of respondent no. 1 again to the Selection Committee, which would be evident from the directions which we have quoted hereinabove.
31. In view of the above, we find no infirmity in the order passed by the learned Tribunal. The petition is accordingly dismissed. The pending applications also stand disposed of.
32. There shall be no order as to costs.
NAVIN CHAWLA, J MADHU JAIN, J DECEMBER 19, 2025/b/k/pb