Civil Writ Petition No.14934 of 2011 : 1 : IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Date of Decision: August 17, 2011 Preeti Yadav ...Petitioner Versus State of Haryana & others ...Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE RANJIT SINGH 1. Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment? 2. To be referred to the Reporters or not? 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest? Present: Mr.R.K.Malik, Senior Advocate with Mr.Kohal Sharma, Advocate, for the petitioner. ***** RANJIT SINGH, J. The petitioner in this case is an applicant for appointment to the post of Lecturer in Mathematics. 70 posts were so advertised by the Haryana Public Service Commission in October, 2009. These posts were increased to 71 when over all posts advertised were increased from 475 to 497 during January, 2010. The eligibility for appointment was Postgraduation with 55% marks and good academic record. Passing of NET/SLET was one of the essential condition, which was exempted in case of those candidates, who had qualified in Ph.D on or before 31.5.2009. The petitioner was having Postgraduation degree with Civil Writ Petition No.14934 of 2011 : 2 : 60% marks, but she had neither passed NET/SLET nor was having a degree of Ph.D. Subsequently, on 25.7.2011 an announcement has been published granting exemption to those candidates also, who though had not qualified Ph.D., or NET/SLET, but had registered for Ph.D. on or before 31.5.2009. Such a person has also been made eligible. This announcement is applicable to those who have already applied as can be noticed from the wording of the announcement. The petitioner is a candidate, who is neither registered for Ph.D. nor is Ph.D. qualified. But she has filed this writ petition to urge that before the date of interview, she has qualified in NET examination. The petitioner has not submitted any application earlier. The passing of the NET/SLET was an essential eligibility condition even as per the initial announcement. The exemption granted was only for those candidates, who had qualified Ph.D on or before 31.5.2009 and now to those who have registered for Ph.D on or before this date, i.e., 31.5.2009. There is no exception carved out for doing away with the NET qualification, for which eligibility have to be seen from the date of application or corrigendum. If the permission is now granted to the persons like the petitioner to make an application, it will violate the sanctity of cut off date. It has consistently been viewed by the Courts that prescribing a particular date as last date for filing application, the eligibility of the candidate shall have to be judged with reference to that date and that date alone. A person who acquires prescribed qualification subsequent to such prescribed date can not be considered. An advertisement or notification issued/published calling for application constitutes a representation to the public and authority issuing it is bound by such representation. See Ashok Kumar Civil Writ Petition No.14934 of 2011 : 3 : Sharma and others Vs. Chander Shekhar and another, (1997) 4 Supreme Court Cases 18. Even in Ashok Kumar Sonkar Vs. Union of India and others, 2007(2) RSJ 288, the Hon'ble Supreme Court has viewed that person not having requisite qualification as on the last date of filing application, which was the cut off date, would not be eligible. If the prayer made in the petition is allowed, then the petitioner would get advantage of becoming eligible whereas the person similarly situated and who had not submitted the application by the cut off date, would be deprived of such a benefit. The cases of persons, who are being considered eligible, are those who had submitted their applications before the cut off date and, thus, their case would be entirely different. In fact, the very announcement, copy of which has been placed on record as Annexure P-4, would make this amply clear that this announcement was for information of those candidates, who had applied for the post of Lecturers for various subjects in response to advertisement issued on 20.10.2009 and corrigendum published on 22.12.2009 and 29.1.2010. As per the advertisement and the corrigendum, condition of passing National Eligibility Test (NET) was to remain compulsory requirement, but those who acquired Ph.D upto 31.5.2009 were granted exemption from the requirement of minimum eligibility condition of NET and SLET. When the number of posts were increased through corrigendum, then those who had not applied earlier got additional opportunity to submit their application forms and any person becoming eligible for applying by the extended date, could do so because of this corrigendum. The only difference, which the announcement made, was that the condition of passing the Ph.D. Civil Writ Petition No.14934 of 2011 : 4 : degree on or before 31.5.2009 to become eligible for exemption of NET/SLET was that those who were enrolled for Ph.D on or before the said date i.e. 31.5.2009, were to be considered eligible. There is no case made out for interfering in the writ petition. Dismissed. August 17, 2011 ( RANJIT SINGH ) ramesh JUDGE