Supreme Court Urges P&H HC To Consider Request To Relax 45% Minimum Mark Condition For SC Candidates In Civil Judge Exam

The Supreme Court recently requested the Punjab and Haryana High Court to "sympathetically consider" a request to relax for the Scheduled Caste category candidates the condition of securing 45% in the mains examination for the recruitment of Civil Judge (Junior Division), held as per the advertisement issued by the Haryana Public Service Commission in January 2024.

The Court was hearing a petition filed by a Scheduled Caste woman, Diksha Kalson, who sought accommodation on the grounds that she failed to meet the criteria by only 1.9 marks. She also stated that only 9 candidates were recommended for appointment as Civil Judge(Junior Division) from the Scheduled Caste category against a total of 39 vacancies.

As per her plea, Kalson scored 493.10 marks out of 1100 and failed to meet the criteria by a narrow margin of 1.9 marks. The cut-off marks for the Scheduled Caste category were 495 marks. She stated that she was awarded zero marks for one of her answers in the English paper, which all authorities having repute in the English language attested to be correct.

She then made several representations to the Chief Justice of the Punjab & Haryana High Court, the Secretary of the Haryana Public Service Commission, and the Registrar (Recruitment), and even preferred a writ petition before the High Court. The High Court dismissed her petition on the grounds that once she appeared in the exam, she was disallowed from challenging Clause 33 of the Advertisement, which barred re-evaluation of the paper.

Against this, she approached the Supreme Court in this regard.

A bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, comprising Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Vipul M. Pancholi, found no fault with clause 33 of the advertisement. However, when Senior Advocate Sanjay R Hegde(for the petitioner) submitted that 30 vacancies are remaining to be filled in the Scheduled Caste category, the Court granted liberty to the petitioner, as well as to others who may be placed higher than her on the merit list, to make a representation before the High Court.

The bench said that the representation can be made to the administrative side of the High Court, seeking relaxation of the minimum 45% marks prescribed for the Scheduled Caste category: "We request the High Court to consider the representation sympathetically, regardless of the view taken on the judicial side in the impugned judgments."

With this, the SLP was disposed of.

Case Details: DIKSHA KALSON v. STATE OF HARYANA & ORS|SPECIAL LEAVE PETITION (CIVIL) Diary No(s). 11430/2026

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For Petitioner(s) :Mr. Sanjay R Hegde, Sr. Adv. Mr. Kumar Abhishek, Adv. Ms. Anamika Mishra, Adv. Mr. Kunal Karan, Adv. Mr. Ankit Tiwari, Adv. Mr. Ashish Kumar, Adv. Mr. Shubham Prateek Singh, Adv. Mr. Harnaman Singh, Adv. Mr. Vijay Pal, Adv. Mr. Shivkumar Raghunath Golwalkar, Adv. Mr. Sahil Goyal, Adv. Mr. Rishikesh Poddar, Adv. Mr. Anubhav, AOR