NEW DELHI: The High Court will on Wednesday hear a plea seeking direction to the armed forces to resume the recruitment process cancelled due to introduction of the Agnipath scheme. The plea also seeks preparation of the final merit list after conducting a written examination within stipulated time.
Announced on June 14, the Agnipath scheme provides for the recruitment of youths in the defence forces between the age of 17-and-a-half and 21 for only four years with a provision to retain 25 percent of them for 15 more years. Major protests had erupted in several states against the scheme.
Later, the central government extended the upper age limit to 23 years for recruitment in 2022.
On Tuesday, a bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad said it would hear the petition along with several pleas challenging the scheme.
The present petitioner Rahul submitted that he had applied for the post of soldier general duty and other candidates, besides this post, had applied for the posts of soldier technical, soldier technical (aviation/ammunition examiner), soldier technical nursing assistant/ nursing assistant veterinary, soldier clerk/ store keeper technical/ inventory management and soldier trade man.
The plea said the petitioner along with others applied for the respective posts and their physical and medical exam were also conducted and he cleared it successfully. The petitioner was waiting to appear in the written exam, that is, Common Entrance Examination which was scheduled to be conducted on July 25, 2021 but was postponed due to Covid.