After a gap of almost seven years, a division bench of the Bombay high court conducted a hearing on Sunday. The chief justice conducted hearing of two petitions filed by ten persons who sought urgent reliefs with regards to the recruitment exams of the Ordinance factory which is starting from Monday, October 5. The limited relief sought by the petitioners was to be permitted to appear for the exams as they were held once every four years. The court however refused to intervene as they had not challenged the eligibility criteria for the recruitment exams.
A division bench of chief justice Dipankar Datta and justice Girish Kulkarni while hearing the petitions of Mahesh Bhalke and others through video conferencing was informed that they were working in an ammunition factory and were pursuing diploma courses for chargeman in various institutes affiliated to the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE).
The advocate submitted that the final exams of the diploma course was to be held in April/May but the same were postponed due to the pandemic. He further submitted that they were desirous of appearing for the recruitment exam for the post of chargeman announced by the Ordinance Factory Board in May. However, as the final exams of their diploma course was pending they were deemed ineligible for appearing in the recruitment exams, hence they approached CAT seeking relief in the form of waiving of the eligibility criteria, but after CAT refused, they approached the HC.
The advocate for the petitioners submitted that as the exam was held once every four years and there was a proposal for privatization in the near future they did not want to miss out the opportunity to appear for the recruitment exams.
After hearing the submissions the court said, “We are fully sympathetic to your case as you have said in your petition that this job opportunity comes only once in four years. But an SC judgment stares us in our face,” said Datta adding that the apex court judgement said that if a candidate was not eligible on the last date of application, an employer could not be held liable to allow the applicant. The last date of applying for the recruitment exams was June 15.
The bench then said that as the recruitment notification and the eligibility criteria of having passed diploma course was not challenged in the petition, it could not intervene and dismissed the petition.
Thereafter, Justice Kulkarni then reminisced about the hearing held by a division bench of justices S J Vazifdar and K R Shriram on a Sunday in 2013. “The bench had gone to the court and sat on the dais and conducted hearing for the entire day. I was making arguments across the bar then,” said Kulkarni.
Advocate Rui Rodrigues for one of the respondent’s concurred saying that it was a hearing for petitions filed by students who had sought permission to appear for exams that were to be held the next day.
The CJ then said that the HC was open for anyone seeking justice 24 hours a day.
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