Illegitimacy in Selection Process on the basis of either fraud or irregularities and the Hon’ble Court has upheld the Cancellation of examination Delhi Subordinate Services Selection Board
21 May 2021 04:01 pm
It was held that “Recruitment to public services must command public confidence. Persons who are recruited are intended to fulfil public functions associated with the functioning of the Government. Where the entire process is found to be flawed, its cancellation may undoubtedly cause hardship to a few who may not specifically be found to be involved in wrong-doing. But that is not sufficient to nullify the ultimate decision to cancel an examination where the nature of the wrong-doings cuts through the entire process so as to seriously impinge upon the legitimacy of the examinations which have been held for recruitment. Both the High Court and the Tribunal have, erred in laying exclusive focus on the report of the second committee which was confined to the issue of impersonation. The report of the second committee which was confined to the issue of impersonation. The report of the second committee is only one facet of the matter. The Deputy Chief Minister was justified in going beyond it and ultimately recommending that the entire process should be cancelled on the basis of the findings which were arrived at in the report of the first committee. Those findings do not stand obliterated nor has the Tribunal found any fault with those findings. In this view of the matter, both the judgments of the Tribunal and the High Court are unsustainable”.
The constitutional values which undergird Articles 14 and 16 mandate that selection processes conducted by public authorities to make recruitments have to be fair, transparent and accountable. All too often, human fallibility and foibles intrude into the selection processes. Selection involves intense competition and there is no dearth of individuals who try and bend the rules to gain an unfair leap in the race. Irregularities in the process give rise to misgivings over whether the process has denied equal access to all persons. The sanctity of the selection process comes under a cloud. The detection of individual wrongdoing by candidates may result in action being taken to exclude those whose credentials or performance is tainted. But when the entire process is tainted, the authority in charge of conducting it may decide to cancel the selection as a whole. Judicial review is then invoked to challenge the decision to cancel the entire process. The guiding principles have evolved over the past five decades as new challenges emerged and novel attempts to suborn the legitimacy of recruitment processes have come to the fore. The Delhi High Court in the present case upheld the view of the Central Administrative Tribunal (“Tribunal”) that the cancellation of the entire process was invalid but it confined the relief to six candidates who had moved the proceedings before the Tribunal in the first instance. Like other cases of its genre, this batch of appeals calls the court to balance two competing considerations: the need to preserve public PART A confidence in and the sanctity of selection to public posts and the requirement of observing fairness to candidates who invest time and resources in attempting to clear through a selection. Both these considerations have a constitutional foundation going beyond service and administrative law principles. The issue has travelled to the court for resolution and the path ahead requires us to revisit and evolve the law on the subject.
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