In a significant judgment upholding recruitment transparency, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has quashed a decision made by the Haryana Public Service Commission (HPSC). The commission had attempted to introduce minimum qualifying marks for interviews during the recruitment process for Assistant Professor posts in state Government Medical Colleges.

The Core Dispute

The controversy stems from a recruitment drive for 189 teaching faculty positions in Super Speciality and Broad Speciality departments. According to the original advertisement issued by the Director General Medical Education and Research (DGMER) on May 31, 2022, the selection was to be based on a 75:25 ratio—75 marks for pre-merit academic criteria and 25 marks for the interview. However, just six days before the scheduled interviews, the HPSC unexpectedly announced a mandatory qualifying threshold: 50% for the general category and 45% for reserved categories.

Petitioners challenged this move, arguing that no such benchmark existed in the initial notification or subsequent interview calls, making the sudden change arbitrary and unfair.

Why This Matters

BozokMedia analysis shows that this ruling sets a vital precedent for state-run recruiting agencies. The court emphasized that while weightage determines how much a component counts, a 'qualifying threshold' acts as a tool for elimination, which can nullify the hard-earned academic marks of candidates.

'Caesar’s wife must remain above all suspicion'—The court remarked, highlighting that a state agency cannot afford doubts regarding its credibility.

Constitutional Implications

The Bench, led by Justice Harpreet Singh Brar, examined the matter through the lens of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution, which guarantee equality of opportunity in public employment. The court noted that the pre-merit marks were based on a complex, expert-designed formula, and the HPSC's new rule attempted to bypass the merit established through that formula.

The court ultimately quashed the HPSC's December 2022 announcement and ordered a re-evaluation. The commission must now finalize the selection based on the aggregate merit out of 100 marks without applying any minimum cut-off for the viva voce.

Historical Background

Historically, recruitment transparency has been a cornerstone of Indian administrative law. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that once a recruitment process has commenced based on specific rules, those rules cannot be changed mid-way to the detriment of the applicants, as it violates the principle of legitimate expectation.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Why did the court intervene in the HPSC recruitment?
The court intervened because the HPSC changed the selection criteria (minimum qualifying marks) just six days before the interviews, which was not part of the original advertisement.

2. What is the court's direction for the successful candidates?
The court directed HPSC to re-calculate merit based on the original rules and issue appointment letters to successful candidates with appropriate salary and notional benefits.