Submission of a false experience certificate lawfully justifies cancellation of a candidate’s selection.

The Department of Posts issued a notification for recruitment to 19 Driver posts, requiring candidates to furnish proof of driving experience in light and heavy vehicles, including at least one year’s heavy-vehicle experience.

The applicant submitted an experience certificate issued by Paschim Badkulla Panya Paribahan Malik Kalyan Samity, stating that he had driven a medium goods vehicle and had thereafter been promoted to drive a heavy vehicle, namely L.P. Lorry No. WB51A2161, from 5 August 2010.

During verification, the respondents found that the vehicle was registered only on 25 May 2011 and was classified as a medium goods vehicle, rather than a heavy goods vehicle.

The respondents consequently treated the certificate as containing false information and cancelled the applicant’s candidature by order dated 22 February 2017.

Whether the respondents unlawfully changed the recruitment criteria after commencement of the selection process by verifying the vehicle registration and classification details mentioned in the applicant’s experience certificate?

Whether the respondents were required to accept the applicant’s subsequently amended experience certificate after the original certificate was found to contain false information?

Whether the applicant was entitled to relief on the ground that other selected candidates had allegedly submitted defective or inaccurate experience certificates, thereby violating Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution?

The Tribunal exercised jurisdiction under Section 19 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985.

It applied the terms of the recruitment notification, which required candidates to submit genuine documentary proof of driving experience in light and heavy vehicles; verification of such documents was held to be inherent in the recruitment process and was not an alteration of the eligibility criteria.

The Tribunal considered the principle in Tej Prakash Pathak & Ors. v. Rajasthan High Court & Ors., Civil Appeal Nos. 2635–2636 of 2013, that eligibility conditions ordinarily cannot be changed after commencement of the selection process, but held that the principle did not prevent verification of the authenticity of documents submitted under the original notification.

It further held that, absent an enabling provision in the notification, a candidate could not amend or substitute a certificate after the original certificate had been found false.

Finally, the Tribunal applied the settled principle that Article 14 does not confer a right to “negative equality”; an allegedly erroneous selection of another candidate cannot compel repetition of the same illegality.

The Tribunal held that the notification expressly required proof of driving experience and necessarily contemplated verification of whether the certificate was genuine and whether the claimed experience corresponded to the relevant category of vehicle.

Verification of the vehicle’s registration date and classification therefore did not introduce a new criterion but tested the truthfulness of the document submitted by the applicant.

The discrepancy was material: the certificate claimed heavy-vehicle experience from August 2010, whereas the identified vehicle was registered only in May 2011 and was classified as a medium goods vehicle.

The subsequently issued amended certificate could not cure the defect because the notification contained no provision permitting post-submission correction or replacement of a certificate found to be false.

The allegations concerning two other selected candidates were not adjudicated in the applicant’s case and, even if assumed to be true, could not establish a right to appointment based on the applicant’s own inaccurate certificate.

Such allegations were matters for separate investigation, particularly since the concerned candidates had not been impleaded.

The principle of negative equality further defeated the applicant’s claim under Articles 14 and 16.

It held that verification of the experience certificate was permissible, that rejection of the candidature did not amount to changing the recruitment rules midstream, and that the respondents were not obliged to accept the subsequently amended certificate.

Since the original certificate contained materially false information regarding the nature and timing of the applicant’s heavy-vehicle experience, cancellation of his appointment candidature was lawful.

The Original Application was dismissed on merits, with no order as to costs.