Compilation Vol 3 Corrected (1-943).pmd - Goa Public Service ...

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D. After receiving the new caste certificates from whoever among the candidates chose to
provide them, the Commission re-worked the select list incorporating in each reservation
category the candidates with the highest marks. As a consequence the applicants had to
make way to others in the respective reservation categories who had higher marks than
the applicants. The recruitment was without blemish in other respects and out of 25
posts only selection to the ten posts in the reserved category are involved in the objections
raised by Respondents 3 to 7. To have cancelled the entire selection of all 25 posts to
take up a new exercise from scratch would have been unwarranted. In respect of the
reserved category, the course adopted by the Commission cannot be faulted. The
rectification carried out by the Commission, in our view, was the appropriate way out
where there were no other objections of any weight to the recruitment which had been
undertaken. Had any eligible official approached the Commission with the contention
that he had been altogether prevented from applying for the selection because the
notification prescribed the creamy layer criterion, the picture may then have been different,
but there were no such objections from anyone. To afford an opportunity to candidates
to produce caste certificate after the selection had already been made is no doubt an
unusual procedure. The general rule is that the caste certificates valid as on the date of
the application should be produced with the application and no such certificates are
permitted to be produced subsequently. The present case differs from any other instance
of attempting to produce a certificate after submission of application, because the instruction
was issued generally to all applicants as a measure of rectification of an erroneous instruction
the responsibility for which lay at the door of the Commission itself. The interests of no
persons other than those who had already applied and participated in the selection were
involved, and they were all afforded the opportunity to produce the correct caste certificate.
With regard to the powers of an authority to correct mistakes, we have been referred to
the observation of High Court of Karnataka in Writ Appeal No.1740 of 1994 (Deputy
General Manager, Canara Bank –vs- J.Dorairaj) where the Bank had to retract certain
measures because errors had crept in. The Court observed,
“There can be no doubt that the bank, as an administrative authority and has an inherent
power to correct the accidental mistakes committed by it. It cannot also be disputed that
if the inherent power to correct inadvertent mistake is not recognized and accepted, the
same will lead to injustice and unwarranted and undesirable consequences.”
In the present case, faced with mistakes of its own which impinged on the proper preparation of
the list of selected candidates, the Commission applied corrective measure that rectified the error
where it occurred, namely in respect of the caste certificates to be produced by the candidates only to
reserve categories 2A, 2B, 3A, 3B & GM (Rural). No other measure was required and there was no
need to have cancelled the entire process of recruitment that had been gone through.
29. In the light of the foregoing, we see no merit in the applications and we order that they be
dismissed.
Karnataka PSC
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