Recruiting authorities may adopt higher experience thresholds for shortlisting without altering essential eligibility criteria.

The applicants challenged the recruitment process conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) pursuant to Advertisement No. 13/2017 for eight posts of Youth Officer in the National Service Scheme.

The essential qualification required a Master’s Degree with two years’ experience or a Bachelor’s Degree with four years’ experience in organising programmes relating to youth work or youth welfare, including NCC, NSS, NSVS, sports, cultural and educational activities, including camping.

The applicant in O.A. No. 3329/2018 was not shortlisted for interview, while the applicants in O.A. No. 3451/2018 appeared for interview but were not recommended.

The applicants alleged that the UPSC impermissibly treated NSS/NSVS participation certificates and NCC ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’ certificates as qualifying organising experience, and also counted experience allegedly excluded by the recruitment instructions, such as part-time or guest-faculty experience.

They further challenged the successive scrutiny notices, by which the number of shortlisted candidates increased from 72 to 76 and thereafter to 77.

The UPSC contended that 967 applications had been received for eight vacancies and that the advertisement expressly authorised shortlisting on the basis of higher experience.

It adopted enhanced experience thresholds of six years for Bachelor’s Degree holders and four years for Master’s Degree holders in the relevant category.

In relation to Ms. Rajni, the UPSC treated only 3 years and 7 months of her claimed experience as relevant and rejected her candidature under “Better Candidates Available”, while also stating that her additional qualification was a Post-Graduate Diploma rather than a Master’s Degree.

The UPSC maintained that later scrutiny notices merely corrected inadvertent errors after considering representations.

1. Whether the UPSC was legally competent to adopt a higher experience threshold as a shortlisting criterion when 967 applications were received for eight vacancies.

2. Whether treating NSS/NSVS participation and NCC certificates as evidence of experience in organising youth-welfare programmes was consistent with the advertisement and Recruitment Rules.

3. Whether the UPSC could count experience rendered on a part-time, daily-wage or visiting/guest-faculty basis despite the express exclusion in Instruction No. 7.

4. Whether the successive scrutiny notices increasing the shortlisted candidates from 72 to 76 and then 77 were arbitrary or impermissibly altered the recruitment criteria.

5. Whether the applicants established sufficient illegality, arbitrariness, discrimination or inconsistent application of the criteria to warrant interference with the completed selection and recommendations.

The Tribunal applied Section 19 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985, under which the OAs were instituted.

It relied on the advertisement’s Note-I and Note-II, which provided that the prescribed qualifications were minimum qualifications and did not confer an automatic right to interview, while authorising the UPSC to adopt reasonable shortlisting criteria based, inter alia, on higher educational qualifications or higher relevant experience where applications were numerous.

The Tribunal relied on M.P. Public Service Commission v. Navnit Kumar Potdar, (1994) 6 SCC 293; Union of India v. T. Sundararaman, (1997) 4 SCC 664; and B. Ramakichenin @ Balagandhi v. Union of India, (2008) 1 SCC 362, for the principle that a recruiting authority may adopt reasonable and objective shortlisting criteria without altering the minimum eligibility conditions.

It also applied the “rules of the game” principle from K. Manjusree v. State of Andhra Pradesh, (2008) 3 SCC 512, Hemant Malhotra v. High Court of Delhi, (2008) 7 SCC 11, Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation v. Rajendra Bhimrao Mandve, (2001) 10 SCC 51, and Tej Prakash Pathak v. Rajasthan High Court, 2024 INSC 847, that selection criteria cannot be altered to the prejudice of candidates after commencement of the recruitment process.

The Tribunal further applied the limited scope of judicial review in recruitment matters: courts may intervene for arbitrariness, mala fides, irrationality, discrimination or violation of the governing rules, but should not substitute their assessment for that of an expert recruiting body.

The Tribunal held that the large disparity between applications and vacancies—967 applications for eight posts—justified shortlisting, and that the advertisement expressly permitted the UPSC to use higher relevant experience for that purpose.

Accordingly, the enhanced thresholds of six years for graduates and four years for post-graduates were not, by themselves, an alteration of the essential eligibility conditions.

However, shortlisting could not be used to redefine the substantive requirement of experience in “organising” youth-welfare programmes.

Mere participation in NSS/NSVS events or possession of NCC certificates could not automatically be treated as equivalent to organising experience; the actual duties and supporting material had to be considered.

Similarly, the UPSC was bound by the express exclusion of part-time, daily-wage and visiting/guest-faculty experience.

The increase in shortlisted candidates through successive scrutiny notices was not inherently unlawful because it could represent correction of inadvertent errors after consideration of representations, provided the same standards were applied uniformly.

On the facts, however, the applicants failed to produce cogent material proving that selected candidates had been accepted solely on the basis of impermissible participation or excluded experience, or that the UPSC had applied different standards to them.

Ms. Rajni also could not supplement her original application with an undisclosed NCC claim or rely on a qualification subsequently found to be a Post-Graduate Diploma rather than a Master’s Degree.

It clarified that the UPSC could not mechanically treat mere participation as organising experience or count experience expressly excluded by the recruitment instructions, but found that the applicants had not established such selective or inconsistent application in the present case.

O.A. No. 3329/2018 and O.A. No. 3451/2018 were dismissed; the scrutiny notices and final list of recommended candidates were not disturbed, there was no order as to costs, and all pending miscellaneous applications were disposed of.