Cut-Off Marks Can't Be Lowered For Reserved Category Merely To Fill Vacant Seats: Allahabad HC [Read Order]

Can cut-off marks be lowered to fill the quota of seats reserved for Special category candidates in the absence of required number of candidates qualifying the written examination? The Allahabad High Court has answered the question in the negative.Justice Siddharth held that the cut-off marks cannot be lowered to merely fill the seats reserved for the special category and once a candidate. The court said so while deciding the petition of one Bhuvnesh Pachuri who belongs to the category of “Dependents of Freedom Fighters” and had sought lowering of cut-off marks after failing to clear the written examination for the post of junior engineers in UP Jal Nigam. The Allahabad High Court, however, was of the view that, “Clearly this is not the case of the petitioner that prior to his appearance in the competitive examination, there was some law/rule providing any relaxation in cut-off marks to candidates of any vertical or horizontal category,” “In the present case, the petitioner is arguing that after he failed to secure the cut of marks of 42, since the post of horizontal category to which he belongs were lying unfilled, therefore, by lowering the cut off marks he should have been called for interview.