CAT says KVS-NVS cannot reject candidates solely because OBC-NCL certificates were issued outside the notified window; directs consideration of certificates issued from April 2024 to March 2026, subject to verification.

The applicants challenged their rejection, or the threatened rejection of their candidature, under KVS/NVS Recruitment Notification No. 01/2025.

The notification fixed 04.12.2025 as the application deadline and required OBC-NCL certificates to have been issued between 01.01.2025 and that date, without specifying the relevant financial year for assessing NCL status.

The applicants maintained that they met the substantive OBC-NCL requirements and that their certificates should not be rejected solely because their issue dates fell outside the prescribed window.

They relied, among other materials, on the DoPT O.M. dated 08.10.2015 and the Delhi High Court’s decision in Raghvendra Singh.

The respondents opposed relaxation, relying on authorities requiring compliance with recruitment cut-off dates, including Sakshi Arha.

The Tribunal heard the connected applications together and decided them by common order.

Whether an OBC-NCL certificate issued outside the period specified in Clause 5 could, by its issue date alone, justify rejection, without examining the candidate’s substantive NCL status for the relevant period.

Whether candidates with certificates issued outside that window could be considered subject to verification of their OBC-NCL status and other eligibility conditions.

Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution require recruitment conditions to have a rational basis and prohibit arbitrary distinctions between similarly situated candidates.

Under Sakshi Arha v. Rajasthan High Court & Ors., 2025 SCC OnLine SC 757, OBC-NCL status is dynamic and recruiting authorities may prescribe a cut-off for establishing eligibility; the Tribunal distinguished that decision on the basis that the present notification did not identify the relevant financial year.

The Tribunal drew on Raghvendra Singh & Anr. v. Union Public Service Commission & Anr., W.P.(C) No. 8304/2025 and connected matters, decided 10.12.2025, for the principle that certificate issuance is evidentiary and that an issuance-date restriction must bear a rational nexus to the reservation objective where the underlying status is otherwise verifiable.

It also considered the DoPT O.M. dated 08.10.2015, which permits provisional consideration on prima facie material in appropriate cases, subject to verification.

The authority’s power to prescribe eligibility conditions remained intact, as did its duty to verify Central OBC List membership, NCL status, certificate authenticity, and compliance with other requirements.

The Tribunal held that Clause 5 prescribed an issue-date window but did not state which financial year the certificate had to establish.

It therefore considered that treating 04.12.2025 as an absolute bar, without assessing the underlying NCL status, gave undue weight to the ministerial act of issuing the certificate.

To define the permissible period, it reasoned that certificates issued from 01.04.2024 to 31.03.2026 could verify NCL status for the relevant financial years and should not be rejected solely because their issue dates fell outside Clause 5’s window, provided substantive eligibility was verified.

The Tribunal rejected any open-ended exemption: the certificate and underlying status remained subject to verification, as did all other eligibility requirements.

It also held that interim orders in other proceedings did not determine the merits of these applications.

In O.A. No. 3791/2026, it separately set aside the adverse verification decision and directed reconsideration and participation at the appropriate stage, subject to verification of the applicant’s status, certificate, and remaining eligibility conditions.

The connected applications were disposed of accordingly, with no order as to costs.