Anuradha Soni vs Secretary, Department of Health and Family Welfare and Another

Tejinder Singh Dhindsa, J.—The Petitioner has filed the instant writ petition impugning the action of the respondent - Department of Health and Family Welfare, State of Punjab holding her as ineligible for the post of Staff Nurse. Brief facts that would require notice are that the Directorate of Health and Family Welfare, Punjab issued a public notice dated 26.7.2011 inviting applications from the eligible candidates for recruitment to various posts in the Health Department including 602 posts of Staff Nurses. The qualifications and other details prescribed for the post were in the following terms:

Yet another specific stipulation was to the effect that only those candidates who have passed Punjabi subject in Matriculation or above are eligible to apply. The eligible applicants were required to submit applications on-line upto 19.8.2011. The advertisement clearly stipulated that the Department does not have any mechanism to check the certificates of the candidates who are applying on-line and if at any stage, the certificate of the candidate is found fictitious/bogus or is ineligible, the candidature of such candidate would be cancelled.

The petitioner, who belongs to the General Category, asserts that she submitted her application for the post of Staff Nurse on 16.8.2011 and was allotted Registration No. 28108045. Thereafter, the petitioner appeared in the written examination in which she obtained 62.40 marks and as such, figured at Serial No. 24. Thereafter, the counselling process was fixed for 18.1.2012 in which the petitioner duly appeared. The precise grievance of the petitioner which has necessitated the filing of the present writ petition is that the Department of Health and Family Welfare has published a list of candidates on 28.3.2012, Annexure P 6, whereby she has been held "not eligible - Punjabi passed in March 2012."

I have heard Dr. ML Sachdeva, learned counsel for the petitioner at length.

Learned counsel for the petitioner would refer to Rule 17 of the Punjab Civil Services (General and Common Condition of Service) Rules 1994 (hereinafter to be referred as ''1994 Rules'') which reads in the following terms:

Knowledge of Punjabi Language - No person shall be appointed to any post in any service by direct appointment unless he has passed Matriculation Examination with Punjabi as one of the compulsory or elective subjects or any other equivalent examination in Punjabi Language, which may be specified by the Government from time to time:

Provided that where a person is appointed on compassionate grounds on priority basis under the instructions issued in this behalf by the Government from time to time, the person so appointed shall have to pass an examination of Punjabi Language equivalent to Matriculation standard or he shall have to qualify a test conducted by the Language Wing of Department of Education of Punjab Government within a period of six months from the date of his appointment:

Provided further that where educational qualifications for a post in any service are lower than the Matriculation standard, then the person so appointed shall have to pass an examination of Punjabi Language equivalent to Middle Standard:

Provided further that where a War Hero, who has been discharged from defence services or paramilitary forces on account of disability suffered by him or his widow or dependent member of his family, is appointed under the instructions issued in this behalf by the Government, the person so appointed will not be required to possess aforesaid knowledge of Punjabi Language:

Provided further that where a ward of Defence Service personnel who is a bona fide resident of Punjab State, is appointed by direct appointment, he shall have to pass an examination of Punjabi Language equivalent to Matriculation Standard or he shall have to qualify a test conducted by the Language Wing of the Department of Education of Punjab Government within a period of two years from the date of appointment.

In terms of placing reliance upon Rule 17 of 1994 Rules, it has been vehemently argued that the requirement of having passed the Matriculation examination with Punjabi as one of the compulsory or elective subjects or any other equivalent examination in Punjabi language had to be in relation to the date of appointment and not at the time of submission of the application forms. Learned counsel would argue that the petitioner has qualified the requisite Punjabi examination in the month of March 2012 and on account of the fact that till date appointments of Staff Nurses have not been made, the petitioner could not have been treated as ineligible.

The question of acquiring eligibility as on the last date of submission of application forms as stipulated in the advertisement is no longer res-integra. There is no dispute as regards the fact that for purposes of recruitment to the post of Staff Nurse, the last date stipulated in the public notice for submission of application forms was 19.8.2011. In the advertisement itself, it was categorically submitted that candidates who have passed Punjabi subject in Matriculation or above would be eligible to apply. The requirement in law would be for the petitioner to have possessed the basic and professional qualifications prescribed for the post of Staff Nurse as also having passed Punjabi subject in Matriculation or above upto the last date i.e. 19.8.2011.

The Hon''ble Supreme Court in the case of Bhupinder Pal Singh and others v. State of Punjab, (2000) 2 SCT 826 considered a similar question in respect of acquiring eligibility. It was categorically held that where the cut-off date for acquiring the eligibility is prescribed under the statutory Rules, the same shall prevail and where no cut-off date is mentioned in the Rules, the cut-off date notified in the advertisement is to be treated as the date for acquiring eligibility and in the absence of any such stipulation in the statutory Rules or advertisement, the last date for receipt of applications is to be considered as the date of acquiring eligibility.

The contention raised by learned counsel in terms of referring to Rule 17 of 1994 Rules to assert that the eligibility in terms of having passed the Punjabi qualification was to be reckoned only with effect from the date of appointment is wholly mis-conceived. In terms of Rule 17 of the 1994 Rules, a condition of eligibility has been introduced inasmuch as it has been stipulated that no person shall be appointed to any post in any service by direct appointment unless he has passed Matriculation examination with Punjabi as one of the compulsory or elective subjects or any other equivalent examination in Punjabi language. From a plain reading of Rule 17, it would be apparent that there is no stipulation contained therein as regards the fixation of a cutoff/last date regarding acquiring eligibility. The feasibility and requirement of fixation of a cut-off date with reference to the qualifications laid down for a particular post came up for consideration before the Hon''ble Apex Court in Mrs. Rekha Chaturvedi (Smt) Vs. University of Rajasthan and Others, and it was held in the following terms:

The contention that the required qualifications of the candidates should be examined with reference to the date of selection and not with reference to the last date for making applications has only to be stated to be rejected. The date of selection is invariably uncertain. In the absence of knowledge of such date the candidates who apply for the posts would be unable to state whether they are qualified for the posts in question or not, if they are yet to acquire the qualifications. Unless the advertisement mentions a fixed date with reference to which the qualifications are to be judged, whether the said date is of selection or otherwise, it would not be possible for the candidates who do not possess the requisite qualifications in praesenti even to make applications for the posts. The uncertainty of the date may also lead to a contrary consequence, viz., even those candidates who do not have the qualifications in praesenti and are likely to acquire them at an uncertain future date, may apply for the posts thus swelling the number of applications. But a still worse consequence may follow, in that it may leave open a scope for malpractices. The date of selection may be so fixed or manipulated as to entertain some applicants and reject others, arbitrarily. Hence, in the absence of a fixed date indicated in the advertisement/notification inviting applications with reference to which the requisite qualifications should be judged, the only certain date for the scrutiny of the qualifications will be the last date for making the applications. We have, therefore, no hesitation in holding that when the Selection Committee in the present case, as argued by Shri Manoj Swarup, took into consideration the requisite qualifications as on the date of selection rather than on the last date of preferring applications, it acted with patent illegality, and on this ground itself the selections in question are liable to be quashed. Reference in this connection may also be made to two recent decisions of this Court in A.P. Public Service Commission, Hyderabad and Another Vs. B. Sarat Chandra and Others, and The District Collector and Chairman, Vizianagaram Social Welfare Residential School Society, Vizianagaram and Another Vs. M. Tripura Sundari Devi,

In the light of the facts of the present case, it is not in dispute that the last date for submission of application forms for the post of Staff Nurse as stipulated in the public notice was 19.8.2011. Thereafter, in pursuance to the written examination having been held, the process of counselling was held on 18.1.2012. It is the petitioner''s own case that she had acquired the Punjabi qualification only in March 2012. As such, the petitioner did not possess the requisite Punjabi qualification as on the last date for submission of application forms i.e. 19.8.2011 and neither on the date of the process of counselling i.e. 18.1.2012. For the reasons recorded above, no infirmity can be found in the action of the respondent-Department in holding the petitioner to be ineligible for the post of Staff Nurse. The petition is devoid of merit and is, accordingly, dismissed.