Chandigarh, Feb 22: The Punjab and Haryana High Court has ruled that reserved category candidates who benefit from any relaxation during a multi-tier selection process cannot later seek migration to the general category. Justice Harpreet Singh Brar delivered the decision while dismissing a writ petition from a candidate seeking an Assistant Environmental Engineer position with the Haryana Pollution Control Board.
The court stated that once a candidate utilizes relaxed standards at any point—including screening tests—they must be considered only against reserved vacancies. In this specific case, the petitioner had failed to meet the general category cut-off of 61.8132 in the preliminary test but moved forward by qualifying under the BC-B category with a score of 56.86. Justice Brar noted that the screening test acts as a “mandatory eligibility sieve” and that any relaxation at that threshold provides a decisive advantage.
Relying on recent Supreme Court precedents, the High Court affirmed that the term “any relaxation at any stage” encompasses concessions in eligibility or selection criteria from the very start. The court maintained that even if a candidate’s performance in later stages surpasses the general benchmark, the initial reliance on relaxed standards binds them to their specific category. “Those who have availed of any relaxation or concession are not eligible to be adjusted against unreserved vacancies,” the court declared.
Justice Brar also asserted that the petitioner was barred from challenging the process after participating in it without protest. The court held that the conditions stipulated in the recruitment advertisement carry binding force and that the candidate was correctly treated as a BC-B applicant throughout the process. The petition was dismissed without any order as to costs, reinforcing the principle that category migration is impermissible once a relaxed standard is utilized.
