Ex-servicemen discharged within the Manual’s two-year period are eligible for police recruitment.

The petitioners were former Army personnel who registered with employment exchanges after discharge and sought consideration for recruitment to Police Constable posts advertised on 10 September 2021.

In earlier proceedings, the High Court quashed that cut-off and directed the authorities to reconsider it under the applicable rules and instructions.

The authorities thereafter rejected the petitioners’ representations and issued a corrigendum fixing the period as 31 October 2019 to 31 October 2021, again excluding them.

The petitioners challenged that corrigendum, relying principally on Clause 9.12 of the National Employment Service Manual, which provides for annual lists based on the two preceding years, reckoned from October to September.

Whether the respondents’ revised discharge-date cut-off of 31 October 2019 to 31 October 2021 complied with Clause 9.12 of the National Employment Service Manual for the 2021 recruitment process.

Whether Rule 12.24(b) of the Punjab Police Rules permitted the respondents to exclude the petitioners by treating the two-year period as a gap measured backward from the cut-off date fixed by the respondents.

Whether the petitioners could rely on the Manual’s provision for carrying forward candidates left over from an annual list, or claim COVID-19-related relaxation.

Clause 9.12(ii) of the National Employment Service Manual provides that an annual list should be prepared in advance and that the two preceding years are reckoned from October to September; Clause 9.12(vii) permits candidates left over from one annual list to be included in the next year’s list.

Rule 12.24(b) of the Punjab Police Rules, as applicable in Himachal Pradesh, concerns the conditions for re-enrolment of Ex-Servicemen as Constables, including the requirement of presenting for re-enrolment and being found medically fit within two years of voluntary discharge.

In Rajesh Kumar v. State of H.P., the Division Bench held that the two-year requirement under the Rule concerns re-enrolment within that period and cannot be misconstrued as requiring the discharge-to-cut-off-date gap to be no more than two years.

The Court applied these principles alongside the recruitment-related guidance in the Manual.

The Court held that, for the recruitment notice issued on 10 September 2021, the relevant two-year periods under Clause 9.12(ii) were 1 October 2018 to 30 September 2019 and 1 October 2019 to 30 September 2020.

The respondents’ revised period of 31 October 2019 to 31 October 2021 did not follow that October-to-September method and therefore could not stand.

The respondents’ reliance on Rule 12.24(b) also failed: applying Rajesh Kumar, the Court rejected an interpretation that made eligibility depend on a two-year interval measured from the respondents’ chosen cut-off date.

The Manual’s carry-forward provision did not extend eligibility to those discharged before 1 October 2018, because the annual list was confined to the two preceding years; COVID-19 relaxation was likewise declined.

It directed the respondents to offer appointment to petitioners discharged from the Army between 1 October 2018 and 30 September 2020, subject to medical eligibility, even if they had crossed 45 years of age.

Appointments were to take effect from the date the other candidates were recommended, with consequential benefits except monetary benefits, which were to be notional; seniority was to be determined by merit.

The Court directed the nomination and appointment steps to be completed within the prescribed two-month period.