No right to sympathetic appointment when cut-offs are prescribed for govt jobs, Cal HC

The Calcutta High Court recently held that the government has the power to insist on age limits fixed by it while inviting applications for government jobs..To this end, a candidate cannot claim a right to be considered for the government post on the ground that he became eligible by the time the actual recruitment began, if he does not satisfy the age criteria on the date prescribed by the government..Justice Shekhar B Saraf reiterated this position recently while dismissing a plea by a petitioner who was disqualified from applying for a government post on grounds of being under the age limit..The West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) had invited applications for the posts of Clerk and Group D staff in August 2016. As per this advertisement, the candidate had to be of a certain age as on January 1, 2016..The petitioner in the case was younger by 33 days as on January 2016. However, as on the date of the advertisement, he was well within the age limit..The petitioner argued that it was sufficient that a candidate is within the age limit on the date of actual recruitment. Reliance in this regard was placed on judgements of the Calcutta High Court..To the contrary, however, the SSC referred to a number of Supreme Court precedents which held that the that the state has a right to fix a cut-off date in the advertisement for selection. In this light, it was argued that the petitioner cannot claim the right to be considered for the post, even on sympathetic grounds..In view of the case laws, the Court concluded that the petitioner could not claim a right over and above the age limits prescribed by the government in its advertisement. The rationale for the same was also explained as follows,. “The principle to be kept in mind is that several candidates would have followed the cut-off date and would have not applied as they were not eligible to do so. The fact that the petitioner applied even though he did not meet the eligibility criteria cannot mushroom into a right to seek for a sympathetic appointment.”.The petition was therefore dismissed..Read the order: