Amid Agnipath row, shortlisted IAF candidates move Punjab and Haryana High Court

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 6

Amid a debate and protests over the Agnipath scheme, shortlisted IAF candidates have moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court seeking completion of the recruitment process initiated vide a notification dated December 11, 2019.

Directions have also been sought for declaring the final result of the examination conducted in November 2020. In their petition against the Union of India and the Central Airmen Selection Board, Sourabh and four other candidates have added that the provisional selection list, dated May 31, 2021, has already been published and is pending for the past one year.

The petitioners, through counsel Pardhuman Garg, submitted that their main grievance was that they applied for a selection test for “Intake 01/2021” to join as airmen in the IAF in “Group X Trades and Group Y Trades”. They cleared “all stages of the selection procedure and cleared the physical and medical tests”. The provisional selection list was published by the respondents on May 31, 2021, and their name surfaced in the list. “It is almost one year since the date of the publication of the provisional selection list, but the final result has not yet been declared”.

The petition added that one of the petitioners filed an RTI plea in the office of the respondents seeking information as to why the result had been delayed. “Till date, no reply has been given by the respondents”. Garg added that the questions of law for the consideration of the court was whether the respondents could delay the result of the examination conducted in November 2020 and January 2021 without any reason.

The other question for adjudication was whether the respondents’ action of not completing the recruitment process in a time-bound manner was “absolutely illegal, arbitrary, unjust, without jurisdiction, violative of the Article 14 and 16 of the Constitution and also the well-settled law laid down by this court and the Supreme Court?” The petition, filed in the High Court registry, is yet to come up for hearing.

Pending for a year

• Directions have also been sought for declaring the final result of the examination conducted in November 2020
• In their petition against the Union of India and the Central Airmen Selection Board, Sourabh and four othes have added that the provisional selection list, dated May 31, 2021, has already been published and is pending for the past one year

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