The Delhi High Court has declined to alter the age criteria for candidates appearing in the Delhi Higher Judicial Services (DHJS) 2024 examination. The current eligibility requires candidates to have attained the age of 35 years by January 1, 2024.
A division bench comprising Justice C Hari Shankar and Justice Amit Mahajan dismissed a plea filed by Shweta Chowdhery, a candidate who challenged the stipulation set out in the public notice issued by the high court on December 27, 2023, said a report by LiveLaw.in.
Chowdhery sought to extend the cut-off date to January 1, 2025, or alternatively, January 10, 2025, to allow additional candidates to qualify.
The court emphasised the inherent difficulty of establishing a cut-off date that satisfies all candidates. It clarified that there is no legal obligation to align the minimum age cut-off date with the final date for submitting applications.
“It is humanly impossible to fix a cut-off date which would satisfy everybody,” the bench stated, adding that such a date is necessary to maintain certainty in the selection process.
The judges noted that the establishment of a cut-off date is both permissible and advisable to ensure consistency. They further remarked that judicial intervention in administrative decisions regarding cut-off dates is unwarranted unless the criteria are found to be “capricious, whimsical, or arbitrary.”
The court acknowledged the hardship faced by candidates who fail to meet the eligibility criteria by the specified date. However, it maintained that this inevitable consequence does not make the fixation of the cut-off date arbitrary or unjust, added LiveLaw.in.
“Any cut-off date, when fixed, would impact those who do not attain the requisite age or eligibility by then. This unavoidable hardship cannot render the fixation of the cut-off date itself arbitrary,” the court observed.
