Madhya Pradesh High Court says candidate solely responsible for checking exam website for recruitment updates

Findings

• The responsibility to regularly monitor the commission’s website for all information relating to the advertisement, amendments, results, and further instructions is solely upon the candidate.
• The commission has categorically disclaimed any obligation to act upon emails, correspondence, or telephone communications.
• In effect, the advertisement creates a statutory obligation upon the candidate, and once the petitioner chooses to participate in the selection process with open eyes, she is deemed to have accepted these conditions in toto.
• The consequence of non-submission of documents by the stipulated date is clearly spelled out that the candidate shall be deemed unwilling to participate in the interview and their candidature shall stand cancelled, followed by action as per rules.
• The petitioner admittedly failed to submit her documents within the prescribed time period. Even after extensions were granted with late fees, the petitioner did not comply with the timeline.
  Once the final date expired, the commission became functus officio in so far as the petitioner’s candidature was concerned.
• Furthermore, the petitioner has sought to justify her default on the grounds of illness. This Court is unable to accept such a contention for more than one reason.
• Firstly, the advertisement and the rules with declared result do not contain any clause enabling relaxation of the document verification schedule on medical or personal grounds.
• Secondly, recruitment to public posts is governed by the principles of certainty, transparency, and equal opportunity.
• Granting relaxation to one candidate on personal grounds would necessarily result in discrimination against other candidates who complied with the schedule despite their own difficulties.
• In the absence of a statutory provision, no equity can be imported by judicial fiat.
• The petitioner was permitted to participate in the interview only on account of an interim order passed by this court.
• It is well-settled that participation in a selection process under the protection of an interim order does not confer any vested or equitable right upon the candidate.
• The court finds no merit in the contention raised by the petitioner in this regard.
  Any interference at this stage would amount to rewriting or diluting the conditions of the advertisement, which is impermissible in law.

Background

• The matter arises from the petitioner’s plea seeking a direction to the MPPSC to accept her documents beyond the prescribed cut-off date and to consider her candidature for appointment to the post of assistant professor in accordance with the December 2022 advertisement.
• The petitioner belongs to the Scheduled Tribe (SC) category.
• After clearing the written examination and being placed in the provisional merit list, she was required to submit her documents for verification by October 24, 2024.
• Further, the petitioner did not submit her documents either within the original period or within the extended period by the commission.
• She subsequently submitted a representation on November 25, 2024, citing Mixed Connective Tissue Disease (MCTD) as the cause for her delay, which the commission rejected.
• By an interim order on December 16, 2024, the petitioner was permitted to participate in the interview, subject to the outcome of the petition.
• The commission released the final result in July, 2025, whereafter the recommendations were forwarded to the state government for issuance of appointment orders.