BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court has directed the Karnataka Public Service Commission (KPSC) to rectify an error and treat the petitioner as one belonging to Scheduled Caste, besides regulating the provisional/final selection list of the post of junior assistant/second division assistant in accordance with his merit with all consequential benefits.
Noting that, “to err is human and infallibility is unknown to humanity”, Justice M Nagaprasanna passed the order while allowing the petition filed by N Hemanthkumar from J Lambani Hatty in Chitradurga district.
The petitioner had approached the court against non-consideration of his candidature under the SC category owing to his name not figuring on the provisional select list, dated November 25, 2022, published by the KPSC for the post of junior assistant. Further, a direction was sought to correct the error committed by a person at a cyber centre while filling the application by mentioning his caste as Scheduled Tribe (ST), instead of Scheduled Caste (SC).
The counsel for the petitioner had submitted that a direction should be issued to the KPSC to include the name of Hemanthkumar in the select list treating him as belonging to SC considering his merit. In reply, the counsel appearing for the KPSC submitted that this would open a pandora’s box and set a precedent.
Declining to accept the submission of the KPSC’s counsel, the court said: “If this order opens a pandora’s box, so be it. If it becomes a precedent, so be it. This court will not turn a deaf ear to the cry of an SC candidate who has scored high marks despite the trials and tribulations they face by losing opportunities of getting selected for trivial reasons. The KPSC ought to have corrected the trivial human error when the petitioner pointed it out at the time of document verification”.
The court noted that a mere error in filling up an application will not change his caste status. During the time of document verification, the petitioner had submitted his SC caste certificate. The KPSC should have corrected the error at that time. This human error is glorified by the KPSC by declining to accede to the request for a change of category at the time of document verification... The glorification of a trivial human error has resulted in loss of appointment of the petitioner, an SC candidate, the court observed.