CONST AMIT KUMAR & ANR. v. UNION OF INDIA & ORS.

1. The delay of one day in filing rejoinder is condoned. The applications are disposed of. W.P.(C) 1468/2018 W.P.(C) 1866/2018 W.P.(C) 3669/2018

2. The challenge in the present three writ petitions by the five Petitioners is to the validity of the CRPF Group 'C (General Duty/Technical/Tradesman) Cadre Recruitment (Amendment) Rules, 2014 to the extent of the age relaxation for departmental candidates belonging to OBC/ SC/ ST category. The petition also seeks the quashing oftwo signals dated 29'^ April, 2016 and 10^*" March, 2016 whereby the case of the Petitioners for remusteration as drivers in the CRPF has been negatived.

3. These Petitioners joined the CRPF as Constables (GD) between IS^*" October, 2004 and 11^*^ September 2006. By the time they sat for and cleared the Driver & Mechanics tests, which was a pre-requisite for remusteration as drivers, the earher CRPF Recruitment Rules, 2010 stood amended by the impugned Amendment Rules, 2014.

4. One major change brought about by the 2014 Amendment Rules is that while the 2010 Rules provided for age relaxation for OBC candidates up to 33 years for the purposes of remusteration as drivers, under the 2014 Amendment Rules, this age relaxation for the departmental candidates was reduced to 30 years without any distinction being made between the general W.P.(C) 1468/2018 & connected matters Page 2 of[4] '> and reserved category i.e. SC/ST/OB.C.

5. The Petitioners all belong to OBC category, and are aggrieved by the Amendment Rules of 2014 on one short ground. They say that while for direct recruits, in the post ofdrivers, there is still an age relaxation still given up to three years for the reserved category candidates, for the departmental candidates the earlier age relaxation norm has been replaced by one uniform norm which caps it at 30 years irrespective of whether the candidate is SC, ST, OBC or the open category,

6. The Petitioners cannotpossibly claim any fundamental right to relaxation of age norms. As already noted, under the Amendment Rules of 2014, such relaxation provided to the departmental candidates has been made uniform for all candidates i.e. without any distinction between SC/ST/OBC or an open candidate. Therefore, for all categories of departmental candidates, the maximum age relaxation is 27 years plus 3 years i.e. 30 years. The Court sees no irrationality in this change which applies across the board. While there may be a policy for providing age relaxation for SC/ST/OBC candidates at the direct recruitment level i.e. the entry level, a uniform the age relaxation for all departmental candidates without distinction for different reserved categories cannot be said to irrational. Consequently, this Court finds no merit in the challenge to the 2014 AmendmentRules.

7. By the impugned orders, the. Respondents have merely corrected an error that crept in while considering the candidature of the present Petitioners after they qualified in the D&M Exams. The Respondents applied the 2010 Rules instead ofthe 2014 Amended Rules. That eiTor has been rectified by W.P.(C) 1468/2018 &connectedmatters Page 3of[4] the impugned orders.

8. Here again, therefore, the Court finds no illegality in the impugned orders ofthe Respondents.

9. The petitions are accordingly dismissed, but inthe circumstances, with no orders as to costs.

S. MURAODHAR, J.