The Allahabad High Court while dismissing the petition said that the cut off mark in the wake of a large number of candidates appearing in the selections is a device so as to limit the persons who would come within the zone of consideration vis-a-vis the vacancies.
A Single Bench of Justice Vikas Budhwar passed this order while hearing a petition filed by Supriya Singh Bais.
The case of the petitioner is that an advertisement was published for making recruitment on the post of T.G.T Teacher pursuant to the Trained Graduate Teacher Examination 2021.
As per the averments, the petitioner belongs to general category under Dependant of Freedom Fighters (D.F.F) and he staked his claim in pursuance thereof.
He was assigned a roll number the written examination was conducted on 08.08.2021, however, the petitioner was not invited for counseling on the post of Trained graduate Teacher in Hindi. Alleging the action on the part of the respondents to be illegal in not inviting the petitioner for counseling, the petitioner has filed the petition.
Counsel for the petitioner has argued that the entire exercise sought to be undertaken by the respondents is patently illegal and suffers from glaring irregularities particularly in view of the fact that the petitioner ought to have been called in the counseling as he has secured enough marks so as to confer him with the said treatment which has been denied to him.
He seeks to even in fact refer to the supplementary affidavit bringing on record the Advertisement so as to buttress his submission while further arguing that even otherwise it is not open for the respondents to even put a rider in the shape of cut off marks so as to denude the claim of the petitioner.
A.K.S Parihar as well as Gaya Prasad Singh who appear for the respective respondents on the basis of the instructions have sought to argue that so far as the petitioner is concerned, he obtained 192.6248 marks in written examination and the cut off marks for work to Hindi is 237.7072.
He further submitted that as per sub-rule (8) of Rule 12 of 1998 rules as applicable in the case the total number of posts in the Lecturer and Trained Graduate Teacher with regard to the waiting list should not be larger than 25% and, thus, in view of the preparation of the waiting list itself, the last candidate who had obtained marks was 225.4120.
Standing Counsel as well as the counsel appearing for the Board further submitted that one Astha Gupta who had appeared as an OBC candidate under Freedom Fighter Category, she had obtained marks much over and above the petitioner who has appeared as a general category candidate under freedom fighter category and, thus, the petitioner was not accorded any berth even in the waiting list.
They, thus, submitted that the exercise so undertaken by the respondents cannot be faulted in any manner whatsoever.
“Though it is being sought to be argued on behalf of the petitioner that cut off marks was neither contemplated in the advertisement nor in the rules, thus, the same cannot be adverted to, the said argument may be said to be attractive at the first blush but it may not detain the Court any further particularly in view of the fact that the cut off mark in the wake of large number of candidates appearing in the selections is a device so as to limit the persons who would come within the zone of consideration vis-a-vis the vacancies.
Since the petitioner does not qualify even to be placed in the waiting list in view of the marks which he seeks to have obtained the Court does not find any justification in subscribing to the views so sought to be expressed in writing and during the course of the argument”, the Court observed while dismissing the petition.