Supreme Court: Notice Issued; Is Principle Of Rounding Off Permissible In Open Competition?

The Supreme Court in the case State of Himachal Pradesh vs Rajesh Kumar observed and has issued notice in a Special Leave Petition which raised this issue, is the principle of rounding off is permissible in the open competition?
In the present case, a candidate for the post of TGT on batch wise basis under the ex-serviceman category had approached the Himachal Pradesh High Court wherein seeking a declaration that the candidate percentage in graduation i.e., 44.8 to be considered as 45% for the purpose of his selection. The High Court disposed of the petition, wherein the court directed the authorities to consider the petitioner.
Before the Apex Court, the State pointed out in an appeal that the candidate was not qualified to participate in the selection process for the reason that 45% marks for undergraduate course being the minimum qualifying marks for participating in the process. The court relied on the judgement in the case Orissa Public Service Commn.& Anr vs Rupashree Chowdhary.
The bench comprising of Justice Ajay Rastogi and Justice CT Ravikumar observed and has stayed the High Court judgement.
It was observed that in Rupashree, a candidate was allowed by the Orissa High for appearing in an interview of Orissa Judicial Service Examination. It is stated that as per the Orissa Superior Judicial Service Rule 24 and the Orissa Judicial Service Rules, 2007, the candidates who have secured not less than 45% of the marks in aggregate and not less than minimum of 33% of marks in each paper in the written examination should be called for viva-voce test. In an appeal, it was noticed by the Apex Court that there is no power provided in the statute/Rules permitting any such rounding off or giving grace marks so as to bring up a candidate for meeting up the minimum requirement. In the court’s opinion, no such relaxation or rounding off was permissible. Thus, the rules being statutory and no amendment or dilution to such Rules is possible or permissible by adding of some words to the said statutory rules for giving the benefit of rounding off or relax in nature

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