Rajasthan High Court Upholds 45% Qualifying Marks For Disabled Candidates In Veterinary Officer Recruitment

Rajasthan High Court dismissed the special appeal challenging the 45% minimum qualifying marks for Physically Handicapped Category in the recruitment process of Veterinary Officer conducted by the Rajasthan Public Service Commission (RPSC).

The division bench of Dr. Justice Pushpendra Singh Bhati and Justice Bipin Gupta upheld a single judge decision which found that the 45% qualifying criteria was incorporated after the decision of full Commission, and was also published on the official website of RPSC.

The Court held that irrespective of the fact that the condition was not mentioned in the advertisement for the post, since the advertisement had expressly directed the candidates to refer to the website for further instructions, it could not be said to be newly introduced.

“The recruitment advertisement is not to be read in isolation but as an integrated notification that includes supplementary instructions hosted online. Once the advertisement itself directed candidates to access the website for details, the appellants cannot claim ignorance of the information that was publicly available.”

The appeal was filed by the candidates for the post of Veterinary Officer, belonging to the Physically Handicapped category, who had participated in the recruitment process based on the advertisement issued in 2019.

It was argued on their part that RPSC had fixed a minimum qualifying threshold of 45% marks for their category, which was not mentioned in the original advertisement for the post. This petition was dismissed by the single judge earlier on the ground that the criteria was based on decision by full commission, and was publicly available on RPSC's website.

Aggrieved by this decision, the special appeal was filed. It was submitted that the criteria was introduced arbitrarily, in the middle of the game which amounted to changing the rules mid-process. This amounted to violation of Article 14.

On the contrary, it was argued on behalf of RPSC that the criteria was based on decision taken by full commission and was applied uniformly across all recruitments of similar nature. Further, the advertisement specifically mentioned about all other relevant information being available on Commission's website. Hence, non-mention of this criteria in advertisement did not vitiate the process.

After hearing the contentions, the Court agreed with the decision of the single judge, as well as the argument put forth on behalf of RPSC.

It held that prescribing such criteria served a legitimate administrative purpose of balancing components of screening, academic and interview, thus minimizing subjectivity in the assessment. Hence, it could not be violative of Article 14.

Further, the argument of non-mentioning of this criteria in the advertisement was also rejected in light of explicit note in the advertisement directing the candidate to the commission's website.

It was also highlighted by the Court that the appellants participated in the selection process without any protest, and challenged the same only after being declared unsuccessful. It was well settled that once a candidate consciously participated in the selection process, s/he was estopped from questioning its validity subsequently, merely owing to an adverse outcome.

Accordingly, the special appeal was dismissed.

Title: Rameshwar Choudhary & Ors. v State of Rajasthan & Anr. and other connected petition

Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Raj) 370

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