Ganesh Yoginath Patil vs M/o Railways on 26 October 2026

ORDER

Per: Mr. Shri Krishna, Member (A)

The applicant has filed this OA under Section 19 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985 to claim for the following reliefs: “8(a) This Hon’ble Tribunal will be pleased to call for the records and proceedings which led to declaring the applicant’s candidature as Invalid lading to his non-appointment and after going through its propriety, legality and constitutional validity be pleased to order and direct the respondents to allow the applicant to undergo the document verification and medical test process and on clearing the same to appoint him on the relevant post as advertised with all consequential benefits of salary, pay fixation, arrears of pay etc.

(b) This Hon’ble Tribunal will be pleased to hold and declare that the impugned act of the respondents of declaring the applicant’s candidature as invalid is illegal and accordingly quash and set aside the same.

(c) Any other and further orders as this Hon’ble Tribunal may deem fit, proper and necessary in the facts and circumstances of the case.

(d) Costs of this Original Application may be provided for.

2. Brief facts of the case as stated by the applicant are that pursuant to the Employment Notice dated 08.08.2013 for Group ‘D’ posts, the applicant applied for the same and mentioned the date of IPO as 19.09.2013 in his application form alongwith the other documents. The application form alongwith the IPO and other relevant documents were received by the Railway

Location:

Alphanso

Recruitment Cell (RRC) and the said IPO was also encashed by the RRC. The applicant was, accordingly, made eligible to compete in the selection process and issued call letter and admit card. The applicant appeared in the written test on 30.11.2014 and he was declared pass (Annexure A-3). Thereafter, the applicant was issued admit card for physical efficiency test to be conducted on 23.03.2015 (Annexure A-4). The applicant appeared in the physical efficiency test and cleared the same. The applicant did not receive any communication from the respondents and the first panel was issued by the respondents in May, 2015. The respondents have not declared the final merit list in respect of the said Notification dated 08.08.2013. The last panel was issued by the respondents in August, 2018 (Annexure A-5). 2.1 The applicant was not informed that his candidature was rejected or disqualified for any reasons. The applicant filed RTI application asking for the reason for not appointing him. After RTI reply, it was revealed that he was disqualified for not writing the postal order details.

Location:

Alphanso

2.2 It is the case of the applicant that not writing the details of the postal order cannot be the reason not to appoint the applicant after he has undergone the entire selection process. It has been stated that it was for the first time vide letter dated 04.07.2018 followed by 01.01.2019 that the applicant was informed about not providing the details in the postal order in the application form resulting in his candidature being declared as invalid. The applicant had purchased the said postal order from the post office near the Railway station at Solapur. Thus, the reason to invalidate the candidature of the applicant is wrong and arbitrary. 2.3 It has been submitted that on receiving the letter dated 04.07.2018, the applicant immediately wrote a letter and posted the same to the General Manager on 23.08.2018. Since the applicant did not receive any reply, he again wrote a letter dated 14.12.2018 (Annexure A-8) but the respondents did not reply. Thereafter, the applicant on a reference to the PMO office/portal received a reply dated 01.02.2019.

Location:

Alphanso

2.4 Aggrieved by the non-selection of the applicant, because of not giving the details of postal order in his application form, the applicant has approached this Tribunal.

3. After issuance of notice, the respondents have filed their reply and contested the OA. 3.1 It has been submitted that the entire action of the respondents is strictly in accordance with provisions mentioned in Employment Notice No.03/2013 (page 30 A) and every candidate applying pursuant to the said advertisement has to mandatorily comply with all the stipulations of the advertisement and it is not open to the candidate pick and choose according to his wish and will. In this recruitment process in all 11,23,121 applications were received, out of which, 8,04,177 were called for written test, 1,69,407 appeared for written test, out of which, 11,123 appeared for Physical efficiency test and 5563 persons have found place on the panel published on 07.08.2018. 3.2 It is contended that the applicant had applied against RRC/CR's notification No.03/2013 under UR category. As per para 6.1 of the Employment

Location:

Alphanso

Notification, candidates before applying should carefully read the Instruction and ensure that he/she fulfils all eligibility conditions at the time of submission of applications. As per para 2 (i) of the Employment Notification, application Fees of Rs 100/- was payable in the form of crossed Demand Draft or crossed Indian Postal Order. Further, in column No.15 of the application form, candidate had to mention details of IPO/DD Number and its date. The applicant did not mention these details in the application form and mentioned only date. As per para 2.1 of the notification, Economically Backward Class candidates had to attach income certificate along with application form claiming waiver of examination fee. Similarly, candidates belonging to minority communities had to attach "minority declaration" as per annexure-6 of the notification for claiming waiver of examination fee. The candidate neither attached income certificate nor minority declaration. 3.3 It has been further submitted that the application of the candidate ought to have been rejected at the initial stage itself. But he was

Location:

Alphanso inadvertently called for written test and further process. As per para 6.5 of the notification, "Admission of the candidate at all stages of recruitment will be purely provisional subject to satisfying the prescribed conditions". The irregularity that he had not mentioned details of IPO in column No. 15 of the application form was detected on subsequent checking of files and made not eligible for further process of recruitment. Merely calling the candidate for written test, Physical Efficiency Test and Medical examination, does not confer any right for appointment. It has been submitted that the applicant failed to write IPO details in his application form in column No.15. Hence, the candidature has been rightly rejected. 3.4 It has been averred that the Hon'ble Supreme court in SLP (C) No.706/2014 has held that it is mandatory to follow the instructions given in the Employment Notice, whereas the applicant failed to follow instructions given in the Employment Notification No.3/2013 and left column No.15 of the application form Blank.

Location:

Alphanso

3.5 It has been further averred that the respondent had maintained transparency in the said recruitment. Therefore, correctly replied under RTI vide office letter dated 04.07.2018 mentioning detailed reason for his non-selection. As per para 6.10 of the Employment Notification, " RRC/CR shall reject application for non-fulfilling the requisite criteria at any stage of recruitment and if erroneously appointed such candidates shall be summarily removed from service. 3.6 It has been further submitted that the recruitment process against the notification has since been completed and hence the OA is liable to be dismissed on this ground as well as on the ground that the empanelled candidates are not impleaded as party respondents in the OA. In support of the contention with regard to impleadment of the proper necessary party, the respondents are relying upon the judgement dated 27.07.2018 in OA NO.720/2017 of Hon’ble CAT, Mumbai Bench. 3.7 It has been stated that in view of the above position, the applicant is not entitled for any reliefs

Location:

Alphanso in this OA and, therefore, the OA is liable to be dismissed with cost. 3.8 The respondents have placed reliance on the judgement of the Hon’ble High Court of Judicature at Bombay in Writ Petition No.1624/2018 in the case of Rahul Kumar Porwal Vs. UOI and Others decided on 22.10.2018 wherein the Hon’ble High Court has held that in the absence of any allegation of malafides, there was no error in the action of the respondents. 3.9 They have further placed reliance on the order of this Tribunal dated 27.07.2018 in the case of Sumit Jairam Kode Vs. UOI & 3 Ors in OA No.720/2017.

4. The applicant has filed rejoinder to the reply submitted by the respondents reiterating their submission in the OA and no new points have been made.

5. During arguments, learned counsel for both the sides have argued their case on the basis of pleadings.

6. Learned counsel for the applicant drew our attention to application form (Annexure A-1) wherein in the column No.15, he has mentioned the date of IPO as 19.09.2013. He submitted that the contention of the respondents in their reply that the applicant has not

Location:

Alphanso produced the income certificate is irrelevant as the applicant belongs to UR category and not seeking any relief in fee. He further submitted that the respondents having encashed the postal order, therefore, they cannot be allowed to take plea that the applicant has not given full details of the postal order. He further submitted that the applicant having cleared the examination and having been declared pass cannot be denied selection only on the ground of not giving the details of the postal address. 6.1 Shri Walia has placed reliance on the judgement of Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of Vashist Narayan Kumar Vs. The State of Bihar and Others, 2024 Live Law (SC)1 wherein the Hon’ble Supreme Court has directed the respondents to treat the applicant as a candidate who has “passed” in the selection process.

7. Learned counsel for the respondents Shri Rishi Ashok, on the other hand, submitted that para 6.4 of the Employment Notice makes it clear that mere selection and empanelment does not confer any right of appointment to the candidates. He further submitted that as per para 6.5 of the Notice, it is written

Location:

Alphanso clearly that admission of the candidate at all stages of recruitment will be purely provisional subject to satisfying the prescribed conditions. He further submitted that it is made clear in para 8 of the Advertisement that the applicants are required to read all instructions thoroughly before sending their applications, otherwise, their applications are likely to be rejected on one or more of the reasons given therein. Para 8.2 of the conditions prescribed that Postal Orders/Demand Drafts not enclosed or less fee enclosed or invalid IPO/DD i.e. IPO/DD purchased before the date of issue of Employment Notice. He argued that in the recruitment process 11,23,121 applications were received, out of which,8,04,177 were called for written test, out of them,1,69,407 appeared for written test, out of which,11,123 appeared for Physical Efficiency Test and 5563 found place in the panel published on 07.08.2018. 7.1 He further submitted that the Hon’ble Supreme Court in SLP(C)No.706/2014 has held that it is mandatory to follow the instructions given in the Employment Notice whereas in the present case, the

Location:

Alphanso applicant failed to follow the instructions. He further submitted that the selection process has been completed and selected candidates have already been appointed. Since the applicant has not impleaded any of the selected candidates as a party respondents, the OA is liable to be dismissed for non-joinder of the parties.

8. We have heard learned counsel for both the sides and perused the pleadings and documents placed on record.

9. We find that in the application form (Annexure A-1)in column No.15, the required information to be given was details of IPO/DD Number, Date, Amount, Name of the Post Office/Bank and Place. Since the amount was already mentioned in the form itself, the applicant was required to give the details of IPO Number, Name of the Post Office and Place. However, the applicant has neither given the postal order number nor the name of the post office from which it was issued and the place of the issuance of post office. The application was submitted on 30.07.2018.

10. We have gone through the judgement of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of Vashist Narayan Kumar

Location:

Alphanso

(supra) relied by the learned counsel for the applicant. We find that in that case, the applicant, by an inadvertent error, had recorded the date of birth as 08.12.1997 instead of 18.12.1997. Moreover, there were 9900 vacancies advertised and only 9839 candidates were declared successful and 61 vacancies were remained unfilled. The Hon’ble Supreme Court also took the note of the fact that the application form provided a clause providing for correction of wrong/erroneously filled application forms, which stated that the errors can be corrected once by re-depositing the application fee and filling a new application. It also provided that those filling the application on the last date could correct the application till the following day.

10.1. We find that in the case under consideration, no such provision was provided in the Employment Notice or in the application form. We further find that the Hon’ble Apex Court in the above case has exercised the powers under Article 142 of the Constitution to give the direction to the respondents to appoint the applicant therein on the basis of special facts of that case. This Tribunal does not have

Location:

Alphanso any such power.

11. We find that this Tribunal in the case of Shri Rahul Kumar Powal Vs. Union of India, Through Chairman, Railway Board, New Delhi, Central Administrative Tribunal, Mumbai Bench in OA No.667/2017 decided on 08.11.2017 has examined a similar case of an applicant who applied for Group ‘D’ post and was disqualified because he has not mentioned particulars/details of Indian Postal address and after receipt of information under RTI, he filed the OA. The Tribunal has noted that the prescribed application form annexed to the Notification in clause 15 thereof, it was clearly stated that the details of IPO/DD Number, Date, an amount of Rs.100/- and name of the Post Office/Bank and Place should be mentioned. The Tribunal noted that column 15 of the application form clearly shows that the applicant has simply stated the name of the Post Office and kept the other information regarding Number of IPO and date of its issuance blank, although it appeared that the IPO was annexed with the application form. The Tribunal held that the applicant was not diligent while filling-up the application form, since he has left some portion of clause No.15 blank.

Location:

Alphanso

Even though the applicant was called for written test, physical efficiency test and was subjected to medical examination, it does not confer any right on him for appointment to the post applied for and dismissed the OA. The applicant challenged the order of Tribunal before the Hon’ble High Court

12. On appeal, the Hon’ble High Court of Judicature at Bombay in the case of Rahul Kumar Porwal in WP No 1624 of 2018 decided on 22nd October, 2018 had rejected any relief to the applicant. It will be helpful to extract herein paras 9 to 15 of the judgement of Hon’ble High Court: “9. In the present case, the petitioner has produced on record the application in the prescribed format by which he applied for consideration to the “D’ Group post. The perusal of the application very clearly bears out with the same is incomplete. The details of IPO/DD number and date have been left blank. The candidates belonging to economically backward classes or to the minorities are entitled for waiver in the matter of payment of application fees. However, certificates in this regard have to be produced by such candidates as prescribed in Annexures-C & E. since the application, in the context of payment of application fees was found to be blank and further, since the application was accompanied by the certificates as prescribed in Annexure C & E, the central railway authorities rejected the candidature of the petitioner. There are no malafides alleged against the respondents.

10. Although, it is possible that the respondents could have taken cognizance of the copy of the IPO enclosed by the petitioner along with his application, the fact that they have not done so, does not mean that the respondents have acted unreasonably or arbitrarily

Location:

Alphanso or in any manner violated the petitioner’s fundamental rights guaranteed by under Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India. This is because, respondents in the present case, received 9,77,613 applications for filling up 5740 posts. During the first scrutiny itself, respondents rejected 3,18,944 applications on the grounds that they were incomplete or defective or that there was variance with information in the application as compared to the documents annexed or that the applications were incomplete or made without payment of requisite fees, without details about IPO etc. Since, the respondents were required to deal with such volumes of applications, it cannot be said that rejection of the petitioner’s candidature on the basis of his application form, which was admittedly incomplete constitutes any unreasonableness or arbitrariness. This is certainly not a case where the petitioner can complain of being singled out for any hostile discrimination. The matter has to necessarily be examined of the perspective that the Central Railways had to deal with almost 9.77 lakh applications.

11. The fact that the petitioner was permitted to participate in the selection process upto a particular stage does not give the petitioner any indefeasible right to claim appointment. The employment notice was very clear and had put the applicants to notice that incomplete application forms are liable to rejection. Detailed instructions were also given in the employment notice in the matter of filling up of application forms. In the absence of any allegation of malafides, we see no error in the action of the respondents or for that matter the view taken by the CAT in declining relief to the petitioner.

12. In Ajay Kumar (supra), the petitioner filled up the OMR sheet but forgot to darken one of the block to record the date of birth. A Division Bench of the Delhi High Court however noted that this did not cause any administrative inconvenience to tag the answer sheet and connect the same to the petitioner. This was apparent from the fact that the optical reader read the answer sheet and assigned the marks to the petitioner. It is in these circumstances, that the Court applied the maxim “minimis non curat lex” granted relief to the petitioner.

13. From the aforesaid judgment, it is not possible to ascertain the details of the number of applicants or the number of rejected applications on such grounds. In any case, the Court noted that

Location:

Alphanso the inadvertent error on the part of the petitioner in the said case did not cause any administrative convenience and the optical reader, in fact, read the answer sheet and assign marks to the petitioner.

14. The facts in the present case are entirely different. The plea of administrative inconvenience has been specifically raised and taking into consideration the fact that the Central Railways had to deal with almost 9.77 lakh applications, out of which, almost 3.18 lakh applications had to be rejected for defects of similar nature, we cannot fault the reasoning of the CAT in denying any relief to the petitioner.

15. For all the aforesaid reasons, this petition is liable to be dismissed and is hereby dismissed. There shall be no order as to costs.”

13. In view of the foregoing discussion, we find that the issue involved in the present Original Application is squarely covered by the judgment of the Hon’ble High Court of Judicature at Bombay in Rahul Kumar Porwal v. Union of India and Others (supra). The facts of the present case are substantially similar to those considered by the Hon’ble High Court, wherein the rejection of candidature on account of failure to furnish the requisite particulars of the Indian Postal Order in the application form was upheld. The Hon’ble High Court has categorically held that participation in the subsequent stages of the

Location:

Alphanso selection process does not confer any indefeasible right upon a candidate to claim appointment when the application submitted by him suffers from a defect contrary to the prescribed conditions of recruitment.

14. In the present case, the applicant admittedly failed to furnish the requisite particulars of the Indian Postal Order in Column No. 15 of the application form. The said column specifically required the candidates to furnish the details of the IPO/DD number, date, amount, name of the Post Office/Bank and place. The applicant furnished only the date of the IPO and omitted to mention its number and the name and place of the issuing Post Office. The applicant was, therefore, not compliant with the prescribed instructions for submission of the application form.

15. The contention of the applicant that the respondents had accepted and encashed the Indian Postal Order and had subsequently permitted him to participate in the written examination and

Location:

Alphanso

Physical Efficiency Test does not, by itself, entitle him to claim appointment. As stipulated in the Employment Notice, admission to the various stages of the recruitment process was provisional and subject to fulfilment of the prescribed conditions. The respondents have explained that the defect in the application was detected during subsequent scrutiny. In the absence of any material establishing mala fides, discrimination or arbitrary treatment on the part of the respondents, we find no sufficient ground to interfere with their decision to reject the applicant's candidature for non-compliance with the prescribed requirements.

16. We have also considered the judgment of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in Vashist Narayan Kumar v. State of Bihar and Others, relied upon by the learned counsel for the applicant. As discussed hereinabove, the relief granted in that case was based on its peculiar facts and circumstances, including the availability of a specific provision permitting correction of

Location:

Alphanso errors in the application form and the fact that certain advertised vacancies remained unfilled. The Hon’ble Supreme Court exercised its extraordinary powers under Article 142 of the Constitution of India in granting relief to the applicant therein. In the present case, no corresponding provision for correction of the defect has been shown to exist in the Employment Notice or the application form. Moreover, this Tribunal cannot exercise the powers conferred upon the Hon’ble Supreme Court under Article 142 of the Constitution of India. We, therefore, find that the aforesaid judgment does not advance the case of the applicant in the facts and circumstances of the present matter.

17. We further find that the recruitment process pursuant to Employment Notice No.03/2013 has been completed and the selected candidates have already been appointed. The respondents have also raised an objection regarding non-joinder of the selected candidates as party respondents. However, in view of our findings on the merits of

Location:

Alphanso the case, it is not necessary to examine this objection independently.

18. In view of the foregoing discussion and having regard to the law laid down by the Hon’ble High Court of Judicature at Bombay in Rahul Kumar Porwal v. Union of India and Others (supra), we find no merit in the present Original Application. The applicant has failed to establish that the impugned rejection of his candidature suffers from any illegality, arbitrariness or procedural infirmity warranting interference by this Tribunal in the exercise of its jurisdiction under Section of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985.

19. Accordingly, the Original Application is dismissed. Pending MAs, if any, stand closed. In the facts and circumstances of the case, there shall be no order as to costs.

(Umesh Gajankush)

(Shri Krishna) Member (J) Member (A)

ma.

Location:

Alphanso