'Unhappy With Approach': Delhi HC Tells UPSC For Ousting Eligible CAPF Candidate Who Mistakenly Uploaded Outdated OBC Certificate

The Delhi High Court has expressed its 'unhappiness' with the Union Public Service Commission for ousting an aspirant from the recruitment process to Central Armed Police Force, merely because she uploaded the caste certificate of an earlier date.UPSC had called upon Non-Creamy Layer OBC category candidates to produce the OBC-NCL certificate issued between 1 April 2024 and 14 May 2024.The Petitioner, who was in possession of an OBC certificate issued on 30 April 2024, ended up mistakenly uploading an earlier certificate which was issued on 16 January, 2024.She was thus ousted from the recruitment process.“This case is certainly on a better footing, as the petitioner, in fact, had an OBC certificate issued during the said window period on 30 April 2024…We do not see how the UPSC can seek to contend that, merely because a certificate of an earlier date was uploaded, the petitioner should not get the benefit of the orders passed by us in similar cases,” the Court said.UPSC contended that having uploaded a certificate which was not issued during the window period, the petitioner cannot take advantage of the fact that she did in fact have a certificate which was issued during the window period.“We are unhappy with such an approach, especially from a constitutional authority such as the Union Public Service Commission,” a division bench of Justices C. Hari Shankar and Ajay Digpaul remarked at the outset.The judges pointed out that they had already passed an interim order granting relief even to such candidates who did not have any certificate issued during the window period.This was because, prima facie the Court found the window period insufficient for any candidate to obtain the certificate, particularly when “by the time the notification was issued, 23 days after 1 April 2024 had already elapsed” and candidates had only 20 days left to obtain the certificates.The matter is next listed on August 27 for UPSC's counter. Meanwhile, the Court has permitted the Petitioner to provisionally continue to participate in the selection process.Appearance: Mr. Saurav Agrawal, Mr. Asav Rajan, Mr. Ajay Sharma, Mr. Mayank Biyani, Mr. Sanwar Chaudhary, Ms. Mehak Joshi and Mr. Saurajay Nanda, Advs. for Petitioner; Mr. Ravinder Agarwal, Mr. Manish Kumar Singh and Mr. Vasu Agarwal, Advs. for R-1/UPSC. Mr. Syed Abdul Haseeb, CGSC for R-2/UOI.Case title: Teena Choudhary v. UPSC & Anr.Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Del) 827Case no.: W.P.(C) 10006/2025Click here to read order

'Unhappy With Approach': Delhi HC Tells UPSC For Ousting Eligible CAPF Candidate Who Mistakenly Uploaded Outdated OBC Certificate

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