"A Writ Court has the power to mould the relief. Justice cannot be forsaken on the alter of technicalities": Supreme Court

In Vashist Narayan Kumar vs.The State of Bihar & Ors. (2024), Supreme Court's Division Bench of Justices J.K. Maheshwari and K.V. Viswanathan delivered a 18-page long judgement dated January 2, 2024, wherein, it set aside the judgement by Justice P. B. Bajanthri as part of a Division Bench of Patna High Court. Justice Viswanathan who authored the judgement observed:"We are not impressed with the finding of the Division Bench that there was no prayer seeking quashment of the results declared over the web. A reading of the prayer clause in the writ petition indicates that the appellant did pray for a mandamus directing the respondents to consider the candidature treating his date of birth as 18.12.1997 and also sought for a direction for issuance of an appointment letter. A Writ Court has the power to mould the relief. Justice cannot be forsaken on the alter of technicalities." 

Justice Viswanathan concluded: "26. For the reasons stated above, we set aside the judgment of the Division Bench of the Patna High Court in LPA No. 1271 of 2019 dated 22.08.2022 and direct the respondent-State to treat the appellant as a candidate who has “passed”, in the selection process held under the advertisement No. 1 of 2017 issued by the Central Selection Board (Constable Recruitment), Patna with the date of birth as 18.12.1997. We further direct that if the appellant is otherwise not disqualified, the case of the appellant be considered and necessary appointment letter issued. We further direct that, in the event of there being no vacancy, appointment letter will still have to be issued on the special facts of this case. We make the said direction, in exercise of powers under Article 142 of the Constitution of India. We further direct that the State will be at liberty in that event to adjust the vacancy in the next recruitment that they may resort to in the coming years. We notice from the written submissions of the State that 21,391 vacancies have been notified in Advertisement No.1 of 2023 and it is stated that the procedure for selection is ongoing. We place the said statement on record. We direct compliance to be made of the aforesaid direction within a period of four weeks from today. 27. The appeal is allowed in the above terms. No order as to costs." 

With regard to the appellant's error in question, the Court observed: "It is a trivial error which appears to be a genuine and bona fide mistake. It will be unjust to penalise the appellant for the same."

Vashist Narayan Kumar, the appellant hailed from a small village named Dheodha, Nawadah in Bihar. He belonged to the downtrodden segment of the society. He aspired to become a Police Constable and had applied for the post under the reserved category. Having possessed the eligibility criteria of being an intermediate (10+2 pass), he also cleared the written examination and the Physical Eligibility Test. The appellant submitted his educational certificates/mark sheet as well as his caste certificate for document verification. On June 11, 2018, the final results reflected him as having failed. The only reason was that, while in the application form uploaded online, his date of birth was shown as December 8, 1997, in the school mark sheet, his date of birth was reflected as December 18, 1997. The appellant gave representations but failed to receive any response. He filed a writ petition before the High Court. His explanation was simple and straight forward. He stated in his writ petition that, after noticing the advertisement issued by the Central Selection Board on July 29, 2017, he from his remote village went to the Cyber café at Pakribarawan - a nearby town. With the assistance of a person running the Cyber café, he filled in his form and uploaded it online and he received application No. 7236126 indicating thereby that the online application had been duly filled. His case was that, while filling up the form, by an inadvertent error, the date of birth had got recorded as “08.12.1997” instead of “18.12.1997”. He derived no benefit from it as either way he fulfilled the eligibility criteria and the age requirement. He prayed for the relief in the nature of a mandamus to the respondents to consider his claim for selection and direct them to issue an appointment letter treating the date of birth as 18.12.1997, as reflected in his educational certificates.

Supreme Court recalled that this vey Division Bench in Divya vs. Union of India & Ors., 2023:INSC:900 = 2023 (13) Scale 730, while declining relief to candidates who acquired eligibility after the date mentioned in the notification carved out a narrow exception. There, the judgment in Ajay Kumar Mishra vs. Union of India & Ors., [2016] SCC OnLine Del 6563, a case very similar to the facts of the present case, was noted.

The counsel for the appellant, in her written submissions, cited the following judgments in support of her
proposition that inadvertent error in filling up the date of birth when no advantage is derived will not constitute a wilful misrepresentation and contended that in all those cases reliefs were given to the candidates:
i) Arkshit Kapoor vs. Union of India, 2017 SCC OnLine Del 10154 [para 20]
ii) K. Sangeetha vs. Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission (2018) SCC OnLine Mad 5075 [Paras 9 &
11]
iii) Anuj Pratap Singh vs. Union Public Service Commission, 2018 SCC OnLine Del 10982 [Paras 15,16
& 21]
iv) Shubham Tushir vs. Union of India, 2019 SCC OnLine Del 9831 [Paras 4 & 10]
v) Staff Selection Commission & Anr. Vs. Shubham Tushir LPA No. 237 of 2020 before the Delhi High
Court 
vi) Poonam Pal vs. M.P. Gramin Bank, (2022) SCC OnLine MP 2921 [Paras 9-12]

In Prince Jaibir Singh vs. Union of India & Ors. in C.A. No. 6983 of 2021, the Supreme Court in its judgement dated November 22, 2021 rightly observed that though technology is a great enabler, there is at the same time, a digital divide. 

In Vashist Narayan Kumar vs. The State of Bihar through the Principal Secretary, Department of Home, Government of Bihar & Ors. (2022), Patna High Court's Division Bench of Justices P. B. Bajanthri and Rajiv Roy had delivered a 3-page long judgement dated August 22, 2022, wherein, it concluded:"For seeking mandamus one must establish his statutory right that his name is reflected in the final select list. In the absence of these ingredients, the appellant has not made out a case so as to interfere with the impugned order" dated July 30, 2019 passed by Justice Shivaji Pandey. The Division Bench judgement authored by Justice Bajanthri dismissed the appeal.