Chandigarh CAT Cancels PGI Selection Process.

Chandigarh CAT Cancels PGI Selection Process; Changing Rules Without Notification Declared Illegal, Tribunal Reprimands PGI.

The selection process for the Junior Account Officer (J.A.O.) position at PGI (Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research) has been cancelled by the Chandigarh Bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT). According to the Tribunal, a corrigendum or notification must be issued in order to modify the examination criteria used in the hiring process.

Additionally, CAT has overturned the PGI order that denied two employees’ requests for promotions: Junior Auditor Manvinder Kaur and Auditor-cum-Stock Verifier Ashish Sehgal. Both workers had contacted the CAT via attorney Rohit Seth.

Understand the Whole Situation
According to the current recruitment regulations, both workers claimed to have entered the department in 1998 and were qualified to advance to the position of Junior Account Officer through the Limited Departmental Competitive Examination (L.D.C.E.). According to the guidelines, applicants were deemed eligible if they received 40% of the possible points on both of the exam’s exams. After the test, however, the P.G.I. administration altered the requirements, making it necessary to receive 40% on each paper.

The Candidates Did Not Receive Information
The applicants claimed that no candidate was informed about the modification to the examination rules. Their names were left off of the promotion list for this reason. They contested this action in the Tribunal, claiming that it violates the norms of conduct.

Tribunal Chastises PGI
The Tribunal said throughout the hearing that P.G.I. was unable to demonstrate that all applicants were informed of the modifications to the test guidelines. Such an act was deemed by the Tribunal to be a transparency rule breach.

The Order of CAT
The Tribunal explained that it is a well-established legal principle that, absent a corrigendum or notification, the criteria cannot be changed once the recruiting process has begun. As a result, CAT instructed the P.G.I. administration to reevaluate the applicants’ cases under the standards that were in effect prior to that notification and to consider them for promotion if they were determined to be eligible.