Chandigarh, June 12

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has permitted candidates, who could not get registered due to high fee, to take exam for the post of sub-divisional engineers (SDE) in nine departments. They had moved the High Court for extending the last date for filling up the online application forms following the reduction in fee.

Taking up a petition filed against the state of Punjab and other respondents by the candidates through counsel Puneet Gupta, Justice Ritu Bahri asserted that the reduction in fee had made many candidates participate in the process. The petitioners, as such, could not be denied participation in the selection process merely on the ground that they had not got themselves registered.

“Since the examination is now scheduled for June 15, direction is given to the petitioners to participate in examination after getting themselves registered and depositing the fee as per public notice dated April 27 by June 11. Thereafter, they will be allowed to participate in the examination,” Justice Bahri added.

The Bench, during the course of hearing, was told that the applicant-petitioners were not able to register themselves as the examination fee of Rs 3,000 per department for the general category was on the higher side. In all, posts in nine departments had been advertised.

Gupta added a public notice dated April 27 was issued by the Punjab Public Service Commission after the issuance of advertisements to reduce the examination fee. A decision was also taken to have joint competitive examination for all nine departments and to refund the excess fee paid by other candidates. — TNS