Participating in public recruitment process with unclean hands cannot be favoured, says Karnataka HC

BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court declined to show mercy for two persons who allegedly lost their employment opportunity in South Western Railway (SWR) as they were qualified with answers via SMS over mobile phones.

A division bench of Justice Krishna S Dixit and Justice P Krishna Bhat rejected the petitions filed by Rajesh G and Rakesh V Guttakulam from Hubballi and confirmed the order passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) in October 2019 denying employment opportunities by the Railway Recruitment Cell (RRC) based on the charge sheet filed by the CBI. 

"It hardly needs to be stated that in public recruitment, persons participating in the process with unclean hands cannot be favoured, especially when an untainted lot is available in the open market. The employing agencies cannot be faltered when they cause some reasonable enquiry when shady deals do occur in the recruitment process, malpractice in the examination being one of them. Those aspiring for public employees need to be above board. Where some reasonable enquiry is made by an expert agency like CBI and it reveals malpractice a prima facie attributable to some of the candidates, it is not desirable that they should be inducted into public service. Added, such an enquiry need not be a rowing inquiry. The CAT after considering the material on record has denied relief to the petitioners and the same cannot be found fault with," the court said. 

Petitioners were two of the candidates in the recruitment frame for the Group-D posts, the said process has been begun with the issuance of a recruitment notice in 2013. Written examinations having been completed and efficiency tests having been passed, petitioners were found to be qualified. They also passed through the medical examination. The records of the petitioners were also verified and found correct.

Meanwhile, in response to the request made by RRC in 2015, the CBI after an investigation had found the petitioners found guilty of the allegation of malpractice. They received answers through SMS and succeeded in the examination. Accordingly, the RRC issued an endorsement in February 2019 de-candidature the petitioners. The challenge to the same has been negatived by the CAT and hence the petitioners approached the high court.