Public exams can’t be so restrictive as to be cruel on candidates: HC
Times of India | 31 March 2024
Kolkata: The Calcutta HC has held that public exams could not be construed in a restrictive manner over “trivial” issues such that the experience became cruel for the candidate.
The ruling came in a case, in which discrepancies in date of birth restricted a Jalpaiguri candidate from appearing for the interview in a public banking exam, after clearing preliminary and main exams.The single bench of Justice Sabyasachi Bhattacharyya held, “The object of a public exam can’t be construed to be so restrictive as to be cruel on candidates, particularly for brilliant people, like the petitioner, who has cleared the preliminary and mains in the tough banking exams. The endeavour ought to be to encourage such people and not to shut them out on trivial issues.”
The date of birth on the petitioner’s PAN and Aadhar Card and that of her school certificate appears a month apart. Ordering Institute of Banking Personnel Selection to publish the petitioner’s name in the provisional allotment list and to intimate the banks she is eligible for the interview for probationary officer/management trainee’s posts in banks, the court said the error was “trivial”. —Aheli Banerjee