The Supreme Court on Friday requested the Punjab and Haryana High Court to sympathetically consider a representation seeking relaxation of the 45% minimum total marks prescribed for Scheduled Caste category candidates in the recruitment of Civil Judge (Junior Division) conducted by the Haryana Public Service Commission pursuant to the advertisement dated January 2024. A bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Vipul M. Pancholi passed the order while disposing of a Special Leave Petition filed by Diksha Kalson, a Scheduled Caste woman candidate.
The Court found no fault with Clause 33 of the advertisement which barred re-evaluation of answer sheets and accordingly declined to interfere with the impugned judgment of the High Court. However, Senior Advocate Sanjay R. Hegde, appearing for the petitioner, pointed out that against 39 vacancies reserved for Scheduled Caste category candidates, only 9 such candidates were included in the final selection list. Taking note of this position, the Court granted liberty to the petitioner as well as to other reserved category candidates who may be placed higher than her in the merit list to make a representation before the High Court on the administrative side seeking relaxation of the 45% minimum total marks criterion prescribed for reserved category candidates.
The bench requested the High Court to consider the representation sympathetically, regardless of the view taken on the judicial side in the impugned judgments. The Special Leave Petition was accordingly disposed of.
The petitioner had secured 493.10 marks out of 1100 and missed the cut-off for the Scheduled Caste category by a narrow margin of 1.9 marks. She had challenged the award of zero marks in one of her answers in the English paper, which according to her was correct as per authorities of repute in the English language. Her representations to the Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, the Secretary of the Haryana Public Service Commission and the Registrar (Recruitment) did not yield any relief, leading her to file a writ petition before the High Court which was dismissed on the ground that having appeared in the examination, she could not challenge Clause 33 of the advertisement.
Cause Title: DIKSHA KALSON v. STATE OF HARYANA & ORS. | SPECIAL LEAVE PETITION (CIVIL) Diary No. 11430/2026
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