Lagatar24 Desk
Ranchi: The Jharkhand High Court has granted relief to Chanchala Kumari, who had been denied selection under the Scheduled Caste (SC) category because her caste certificate carried her husband’s name instead of her father’s, directing the Jharkhand Public Service Commission (JPSC) to make the necessary recommendation for her appointment within eight weeks.
Court Directs Appointment Letter Within Four Weeks of Recommendation
The bench of Justice Deepak Roshan of the High Court directed that once the recommendation is received, the state government must issue the appointment letter within four weeks. The court observed that if the error in issuing the certificate lay with a government official, the candidate could not be penalised for it. Advocates Indrajit Sinha and Amritansh Vatsa represented the petitioner in the case.
Candidate Missed Selection Despite Scoring 590 Marks
The case pertains to the 7th to 10th Jharkhand Combined Civil Services Examination-2021. Chanchala Kumari had appeared for the exam under JPSC advertisement number 01/2021 and successfully cleared both the preliminary and main examinations before being called for document verification and interview. During verification, she submitted a caste certificate dated March 27, 2019, issued in her husband’s name. On JPSC’s instruction, she subsequently submitted a fresh caste certificate dated May 9, 2022, issued in her father’s name, the following day. Despite this, her name did not appear in the result declared on May 31, 2022, with her application rejected on grounds that she had claimed SC category benefit at the preliminary stage using a certificate issued in her husband’s name. Chanchala had scored a total of 590 marks, higher than the SC category cutoff of 583, meaning her marks exceeded those of the last selected candidate in her category.
Court Finds Fault Lay with SDO, Not the Candidate
The court noted that Chanchala had applied for her caste certificate on January 4, 2019, whereas a state government letter dated February 25, 2019, directing officials to issue caste certificates based on the father’s name, was issued later. The court observed that despite this, the then Sub-Divisional Officer (SDO) of Koderma issued the certificate based on the husband’s name on March 27, 2019, and that the candidate could not be held responsible if government instructions were not followed by officials. The court further noted that the February 25, 2019 government letter had neither been published in the gazette nor held the statutory status of a law, rule, regulation, notification or government resolution, and therefore could not be used to invalidate a certificate issued later based on it.
Both Certificates Matched in Caste and Address Details
Examining both certificates, the court found that the permanent address and caste recorded in both the March 27, 2019 and May 9, 2022 certificates were identical. It concluded that this was not a case where Chanchala had attempted to claim reservation benefits based on her husband’s caste after marriage, noting that the only change in the later certificate was the replacement of the husband’s name with the father’s, with no alteration to caste or permanent residence.
Court Rejects JPSC’s Argument
JPSC had argued that a caste certificate in the father’s name was not available at the time of application, and that submitting a new certificate later would amount to altering the terms of the advertisement. The High Court rejected this argument, noting that JPSC had not established that the March 27, 2019 certificate was in an incorrect format or issued by an unauthorised official. The court found that the certificate had been issued by the competent authority, the SDO, and matched the format prescribed in the advertisement, which itself included provision for recording the husband’s name alongside the father’s in Proforma-IV.
Court Says Candidate Cannot Be Denied Constitutional Reservation Rights Over Official’s Error
The court held that a caste certificate is fundamentally proof of a person’s pre-existing caste status, and that a procedural error in issuing the certificate, not caused by the candidate, cannot form grounds for denying her constitutional reservation rights, particularly when she had scored higher than the last selected candidate in her category. The court made clear that a candidate cannot be penalised for an error made by the authority responsible for issuing caste certificates.
