Compassion cannot replace competition, UPSC to tell Supreme Court

Source-dnaindia.com

The Union Public Services Commission (UPSC) has decided to contest the cadre allocation given by Delhi High Court to a Haryana civil services aspirant Anu Kumari. She ranked number 2 in the all-India selection, but became ineligible under the rules for failing to indicate her cadre preference in an online application form.

The Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievance and Pension, Government of India and the UPSC’s decision to approach the top court on Monday weighed the repercussions of the September 4 HC order which meant creation of an additional post in Haryana Administrative Service. This would be a grave injustice to those applicants who submitted their preferences online.

Kumari, who hails from Sonepat, had convinced a bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Rekha Palli that had it not been for a technical glitch, she would have submitted her preference by the last date on January 29, 2018.

However, UPSC claimed that she logged eight times into their official portal during the given window, but never submitted the form.

But the HC latched on to a footnote to the notification announcing the Civil Services Examination 2017 in which Kumari stood second — The government strives to have a workforce which reflects gender balance and women candidates are encouraged to apply.

The HC borrowed these lines to show the mirror to Centre, that despite this avowed objective, representation of women IAS officers is one for every 20 male officers.

Factoring this in, the bench made an exception and told UPSC to grant Kumari the preferred cadre.

UPSC intends to tell the Supreme Court that in matters of appointment, compassion cannot replace competition. Every person in the rank list is equally competent and has missed just by a whisker from the person ranked above.

Even the government’s memorandum dated September 5, 2017 introducing Online Cadre Allocation Policy states, “A candidate shall be allotted to his Home cadre, on the basis of his merit, preference and vacancy available at his turn in his category.”