1` IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY NAGPUR BENCH, NAGPUR Writ Petition No. 4317/2010 Vanita D/o Vijay Tiwari .vs. State of Maharashtra, through its Secretary in the Department of Law and Judiciary, Mantralaya Mumbai 32 and others. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes, Office Memoranda of Coram, appearances, Court's orders Court's or Judge's or directions and Registrar's orders. Orders. Mr. S.N.Bhattad, Advocate for the petitioner. Mr. A.M.Deshpande, AGP for respondents. CORAM : S.A.BOBDE & MRS. MRIDULA BHATKAR,JJ DATE OF RESERVING : 19.10.2010 DATE OF PRONOUNCEMENT: 29.10.2010 The petitioner challenges an Advertisement dated 30.6.2010 issued by the Maharashtra Public Service Commission for Civil Judge ( Junior Division) Judicial Magistrate (First Class) Preliminary Examination- 2010 wherein the cut off date for age limit is mentioned as 1st October, 2010 . The Maharashtra Public Service Commission in the advertisement dated 30.6.2010 mentioned at clause No. 4(B) the age of the applicants/ candidates should not be less than 21 years and should not be more than 25 years as on 1st October, 2010. In response to the said Advertisement, the petitioner, who is Law Graduate and passed LL.B. Five Years Course in July 2008 in the first attempt by securing 67.66% of aggregate marks, applied for the 2` said post. The last date of the submission of the application forms was 29th July, 2010. However, petitioner's date of birth is 2.8.1985 and thus she became 25 years of age on 2.8.2010. She has received letter dated 23.8.2010 from the Maharashtra Public Service Commission that her application was rejected as she does not fulfill the condition of age. She, therefore, filed this petition on the ground that the mention of cut off date in the advertisement is illegal and be quashed and set aside. The learned counsel appearing for the petitioner submitted that the last date of submission of the application forms was 29th July 2010 and said date of 29th July, 2010 is to be considered as a cut off date of age and the prescribed cut off date as 1st October, 2010 is illegal. The learned counsel in support of his contention placed reliance on the ratio in the case of Bhupinderpal Singh and others vs. State of Punjab and others (AIR 2000 Supreme Court, 2011). The Maharashtra Public Service Commission in advertisement dated 30.6.2010 has specifically mentioned a cut off date for age as 1st October, 2010 and thus prescribing that on that date the age of the candidate should not be less than 21 years and it should not be more than 25 years. The advertisement leaves no ambiguity about the cut off date and the age limit. 3` In Bhupinderpal Singh (supra) the issue of the cut off date was in respect of the practice prevalent in the State of Punjab to determine the eligibility by reference to the date of interview. The Supreme Court has held that such practice was not to be allowed to continue as it was a loose practice and the applications made by such candidates as were not qualified but were in the process of acquiring eligibility qualifications would be difficult to be scrutinised and subjected to the process of approval or elimination and would only result in creating confusion and uncertainty and, therefore, the Supreme Court held that the last date of the submission of the application forms be considered as cut off date to determine the age limit. In the case in hand, a specific cut off date i.e. 1st October 2010 is mentioned in the Advertisement dated 30.6.2010 and, therefore, all the applicants/ candidates were made aware about the said date. Moreover, the Maharashtra Public Service Commission, at the time of scrutiny, has rejected the said application which itself shows that the process of scrutiny was smooth and without uncertainty. Thus, we are of the view that there is no merit in the petition and hence the petition is dismissed. JUDGE JUDGE patle 4`