Candidates Aged 45 Yrs Or Above Eligible To Head District Consumer Forum If Other Qualifications Are Met: Chhattisgarh High Court Clarifies

The Chhattisgarh High Court has held that if the office of President, District Commission can be held by District Judge aged 55 years or a retired District Judge aged 60 years, then even an Advocate of that age (with requisite experience) is eligible for the same and there is no legal bar or justification to hold otherwise. While dealing with a case regarding non-appointment of petitioners at the post of President, District Commission citing their age as an ineligibility criterion among others, Justice Sanjay K Agarwal has held the petitioners to be fully eligible for appointment on the position of President, District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, qua their age and held the action of the state to declare them ineligible on that basis to be arbitrary. However, the Court clarified that the petitioners were only barred because they were not serving as advocates at the time of filing their application, which was an essential criterion for the post of President, District Commission, as per Rule 4(1) of the Rules of 2020 read in conjunction with A.233(2) of the Constitution of India. BackgroundThree petitioners had invoked the extraordinary jurisdiction of the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution stating that when applications for the posts of President, District Commission were invited and the selection process was conducted, the three petitioners were rejected citing them over-aged for holding the posts and thus the petitioners have requested that the advertisement itself must be quashed. A claim was also made that petitioner no. 3 was an OBC candidate and he was not given the privilege of reservation, in violation of Chhattisgarh Lok Seva Adhiniyam 1994. The case of petitioner no. 1 (aged 53 years) was that although she had 12 years of experience as an advocate and had served for 8 years as a member of the Raipur District Commission and was, at the time of filing the petition, still working as a member of the District Commission, her application was rejected. The case of petitioner no. 2 (aged 50 years) was that he had 20 years of experience as an advocate and was a Member of the Raipur District Commission at the time of filing his application and had still been rejected. The case of petitioner no. 3 (aged 47 years) was that not only did he have 12 years of experience as an advocate, he had also held the post of Member, Raipur District Commission and was also entitled to the privilege of reservation and age relaxation being an OBC candidate. The petitioners further stated that they were not called for interview and this lack of information about rejection of their applications was ex facie illegal and bad in law as they were eligible and qualified to be a district judge, as according to the criteria for President, District Commission candidature, a person must have been qualified to be a district judge to be appointed as President, District Commission. Respondents (State government) submitted that Rule 7 of Chhattisgarh Higher Judicial Service (Recruitment and Conditions of Service) Rules, 2006 which provides for qualification of direct recruitment states that a person shall not be eligible for appointment by direct recruitment unless he is a citizen of India, has attained 35 years of age but has not attained the age of 45 years on the 1st January in the year in which applications for appointment are invited and age relaxation of 3 years to be given to candidates belonging to SC/ST/OBCand has for at least seven years been an advocate on 1st January when applications for appointment are invited. And since the petitioners were much more than 45 years of age, their candidature was rightly rejected. Counsel for respondents also submitted that the rule of reservation is not applicable when there is a single post since it would "amount to a 100% reservation to the single post to the exclusion of other general members of the public." Questions InvolvedThe High Court had to adjudicate on three questions: whether the rule of the reservation will apply to the single post of the President, District Commission? Whether the respondents are justified in declaring petitioners to be ineligible for the above-mentioned post because they are overage?Whether the respondents are justified in holding petitioners ineligible on the ground that they have not completed seven years of practice as an advocate/pleader as per A.233(2) of the Constitution read with Rule 4(2) of the Rules of 2020? FindingsRegarding the first question, the Court referred to Section 28 (Establishment of District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission) of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 read in consonance with Section 2(b) of the Act of 1994. It also referred to Supreme Court judgments in Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research case and State of UP and others v. M.C. Chattopadhyaya and others where it was...

Candidates Aged 45 Yrs Or Above Eligible To Head District Consumer Forum If Other Qualifications Are Met: Chhattisgarh High Court Clarifies

Rashmi Bagri

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