Courts cannot direct one-time age relaxation where recruitment rules and policy provide none.

The applicant, a 34-year-old resident of the Mahe region of Puducherry, possessed a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and a B.Ed. qualification and belonged to the OBC category.

The Directorate of School Education, Puducherry, issued a recruitment notification dated 22 January 2024 for 286 posts of Trained Graduate Teacher (TGT), prescribing an upper age limit which the applicant exceeded by 1 year, 3 months and 26 days.

She contended that recruitment had not been conducted for several years, including during the COVID-19 pandemic, and that the resultant delay had deprived her of an opportunity to apply within the prescribed age limit.

She relied on G.O.Ms. No. 50 dated 29 July 2022, which granted a two-year one-time age relaxation for direct recruitment to Group ‘C’ posts, and argued that denial of a similar relaxation for the Group ‘B’ TGT post was arbitrary and violative of Article 14.

By an interim order dated 21 February 2024, the Tribunal permitted her to submit an application, subject to the condition that such submission would not create an indefeasible right to appointment.

Her offline application was accepted.

The respondents stated that 110 candidates had applied pursuant to similar interim orders and that 78 other over-aged candidates had also submitted offline applications, but maintained that no relaxation beyond the prescribed norms had been granted.

1. Whether the Tribunal could direct the respondents to grant the applicant a one-time relaxation of 1 year, 3 months and 26 days in the upper age limit for recruitment to the post of TGT.

2. Whether denial of age relaxation for the Group ‘B’ TGT recruitment, when a two-year relaxation had been granted for Group ‘C’ recruitment under G.O.Ms. No. 50 dated 29 July 2022, was arbitrary or violative of Article 14.

3. Whether the applicant could be singled out for age relaxation when other similarly situated over-aged candidates had also applied.

The Tribunal held that prescribing an upper age limit and determining the extent of permissible relaxation are matters of legislative or executive policy, relying on Union of India v. Shivbachan Rai, (2001) 9 SCC 356.

It relied on N.S. Siva Kumar v. Additional Chief Secretary to Government of Tamil Nadu, (2020) 2 CTC 241, for the principle that delay in conducting recruitment, absent mala fides, does not by itself justify judicially created age relaxation.

Under Mallikarjuna Rao v. State of A.P., (1990) 2 SCC 707, courts and tribunals cannot issue directions or advisory instructions to the executive in matters within its exclusive policy domain.

Asif Hameed v. State of Jammu & Kashmir, 1989 Supp. (2) SCC 364, limits judicial review to examining legality, constitutional authority and statutory compliance, and prohibits courts from directing changes in executive policy.

Further, Bedanga Talukdar v. Saifudaullah Khan, (2011) 12 SCC 85, and Ankita Thakur v. H.P. Staff Selection Commission, Civil Appeal No. 7602 of 2023, establish that eligibility relaxation is impermissible unless the power is reserved in the applicable rules or advertisement, and that relaxation granted after the application deadline without proper notice is legally invalid.

The Tribunal found that the applicant was admittedly over-aged and that the applicable recruitment framework did not provide a basis for the requested relaxation.

The respondents had considered a proposal for a two-year relaxation for Group ‘B’ posts in consultation with the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Department of Personnel and Training, but the proposal had not been accepted.

Applying the principle that age relaxation is a matter of executive policy, the Tribunal held that the delay in recruitment during the COVID-19 period did not authorise it to create or extend an age relaxation not provided by the governing rules or recruitment notification.

It also held that granting relief only to the applicant would be impermissible because numerous similarly situated candidates had either applied pursuant to interim orders or submitted applications while over-aged; selectively relaxing the age limit would therefore distort the recruitment process and prejudice other candidates.

The applicant’s interim permission to submit an application did not confer any vested or indefeasible right to participate in the selection or receive appointment.

It held that age relaxation was a matter of policy beyond the Tribunal’s authority to mandate, that the applicant could not be singled out for preferential relaxation, and that the requested relaxation was not legally feasible in the absence of an enabling provision in the rules or advertisement.

The Original Application was dismissed, pending miscellaneous applications, if any, were also dismissed, and there was no order as to costs.