Jaipur, May 22 (IANS) In a significant ruling affecting the state’s largest recruitment drive, the Rajasthan High Court has quashed category-wise merit lists in the Class IV Employee Recruitment-2024, where candidates were selected despite securing virtually zero marks.

Hearing a petition filed by Vinod Kumar, the bench of Justice Anand Sharma on Friday ruled that no recruitment process can be conducted without prescribing minimum qualifying marks, observing that such appointments would be unconstitutional.

The Court directed the Rajasthan Staff Selection Board to determine minimum qualifying criteria and issue fresh merit lists for the affected categories.

It is noteworthy that this recruitment drive was the largest undertaken by the current state government, with over 2.1 million candidates appearing for the examination.

The High Court observed that even for Grade IV government posts, maintaining a minimum standard in public service is essential. The Court said the absence of prescribed minimum qualifying marks cannot justify the selection of candidates who scored nearly zero marks in the examination. Advocate Harendra Neel, appearing for the petitioner, argued that his client had applied under the Ex-Servicemen (OBC) category and had secured negative marks in the examination.

The petitioner contended that since the recruitment notification and service rules did not prescribe any minimum qualifying marks, candidates securing negative marks should also be considered for appointment, especially when candidates with cut-offs as low as 0.0033 marks had already been selected in several categories.

It was argued before the Court that there was effectively no meaningful distinction between candidates scoring zero and those obtaining negative marks. The High Court set aside merit lists in several categories where cut-off marks had fallen to extremely low levels.

In the TSP area, the Court also cancelled merit lists for categories including ST Widow and several disability categories where cut-offs were similarly negligible.

During the hearing, the Department of Personnel and the Rajasthan Staff Selection Board argued that the service rules governing Class IV recruitment do not contain any provision for minimum qualifying marks.

The Board maintained that while candidates scoring zero marks could be selected under existing rules, those obtaining negative marks belonged to an “extremely weak category” and therefore could not be considered. However, the Court rejected this reasoning and held that the absence of minimum standards in recruitment could not be sustained legally.

The High Court has now directed the authorities to fix minimum qualifying marks and prepare revised merit lists accordingly.

–IANS

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