The Allahabad High Court has held that a candidate who applies online within time and dispatches the hard copy of the application within the prescribed period by a mode of transmission permitted by the advertisement cannot be excluded from the selection process merely because the postal article reached the recruiting authority after the cut-off date.

Justice Manju Rani Chauhan held,

“To allow such an extraneous postal contingency to extinguish the petitioner's candidature would be to elevate a procedural stipulation into an instrument of substantive forfeiture and to impose upon him a consequence wholly disproportionate to the nature of the alleged default.”

By advertisement dated 18.08.2026, applications were invited for posts under the Medical Education Department, to be filled only by interview. The online application and fee were due by 01.09.2026, and the hard copy of the form along with the requisite documents had to reach the Commission by 5:00 p.m. on 15.09.2026, by registered post, speed post or by hand.

Petitioner applied online and paid the fee on 31.08.2026, and sent the hard copy by registered post on 08.09.2026. It reached the Commission's office at Allahabad on 16.09.2026, a day after the cut-off, and was refused, with an endorsement to that effect made on the envelope, which was returned to the petitioner on 21.09.2026.

The postal authorities informed the petitioner that offices in Delhi/New Delhi had been closed from 11.09.2026 to 13.09.2026 on account of the 18th BRICS Leaders' Summit. A representation to the Commission dated 30.09.2026 drew no response.

Counsel for the Commission submitted that the hard copy, received after the last date prescribed, could not be accepted.

The Court found that the tracking report established timely dispatch and subsequent transit, that the petitioner had discharged his obligation within time, and nothing on record suggested any want of diligence on his part.

The Court relied on the decision of the Supreme Court in Ashutosh Agnihotri v. High Court of Madhya Pradesh and Another, where an application sent by speed post within time reached the High Court a day beyond the last date and the rejection founded on that delay was set aside, the candidate being held blameless.

It noted that the same principle was followed in Sadaf Imran v. Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission, and applied by this Court in Rishish Prakash v. Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission, Allahabad, which held that timely dispatch by a mode contemplated by the recruitment process protects a candidate from delay attributable to the postal department.

“The Court thus recognised that, where timely dispatch and absence of negligence on the part of the candidate are established, a subsequent delay in postal delivery, being beyond the candidate's control, cannot by itself constitute a valid ground for exclusion from the selection process.”

Holding that the Commission could not prescribe transmission by post and then disclaim what followed from it, the Court observed,

“The recruiting authority, having itself prescribed and sanctioned transmission through registered post/speed post, cannot, in the same breath, disown the consequences of that very mode of transmission and visit an otherwise diligent candidate with the drastic civil consequence of exclusion from the selection process.”

Allowing the writ petition, the Court held that the Commission had erred in returning the hard copy on account of the marginal delay in its postal delivery, and directed respondent no. 2, the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission, Allahabad to accept and take it on record if presented on or before 16 October 2026 by 5:00 p.m., and thereafter to consider the petitioner's candidature in accordance with the terms of the advertisement and applicable rules.