NEW DELHI, NOV 8: The Supreme Court has issued a notice to the Centre on a special leave petition (SLP) challenging the Delhi High Court order denying any relief to 105 candidates selected for recruitment in the National Defence Academy (NDA) despite admitting that they were "wronged" by the Ministry of Defence.The apex court, issuing notices to Ministry of Defence (MoD), Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) and Additional Director General of Recruitment (ADGR), directed them to file replies by December 6, the next date of hearing.The SLP filed by some affected candidates alleged that MoD, in "complete disregard" to the accepted policy, had given admission to 141 candidates of 100th course (July 1998) in the 101st course of NDA (January 1999) at the cost of 105 candidates selected from this batch.It said that 337 candidates were selected for recruitment to NDA's 101st batch in December 1998, which started in January 1999 but only 232 were asked to join by the ADGR as 141 candidates from September 1997 batch were given admission in "violation" of set practice and policy by MoD.Thus, the MoD and ADGR had denied admission to 105 candidates of 101st batch and consequently recruitment to the Army at the cost of candidates from previous batch for the first time in the history of NDA, the SLP said.A single bench of the Delhi High Court had directed MoD to take appropriate steps to accommodate the candidates left out of 101st batch in the 102nd course of NDA, a division bench despite acknowledging that the candidates were "wronged", did not give them any relief and admitted ministry's appeal against the single bench order. The High Court, while disposing of MoD appeal had said that the cause of the candidates was "just" and they were right in claiming that "they had been unfairly dealt with"."Notwithstanding all this, they are not entitled (in law) to the relief prayed for by them," the High Court division bench ruled and directed MoD to pay each candidate Rs 10,000 as costs.The candidates in their SLP before the apex court claimed that both single and division bench of the High Court had "concurred" that "illegality" had been committed by the MoD in denying them admission and adjusting 141 candidates of 100th course in the next batch of NDA.But the reasoning being given by the division bench that "they are not entitled to any relief under law", is "totally incorrect" as the MoD, during the course of proceedings before the single bench had given an "impression that a mechanism was being pursued to adjust" the candidates left out. "Having done so, the ministry could not have gone back and resorted to dilatory tactics and frustrated the process of law," the petitioners said.There have been instances in the past when NDA had taken selected 300 to 501 candidates at least five times for training in a single batch and there should be no problem in adjusting 105 selected candidates of the 101st course, it said.
