CUTTACK: The Orissa High Court on Friday asked the Odisha Police Recruitment Board (OPRB) not to proceed with the recruitment for filling up of 477 posts of sub-inspectors, an advertisement for which was issued on June 22, 2021.
The division bench of Justice Subhasis Talapatra and Justice Savitri Ratho issued the interim stay order based on a petition filed by Manoranjan Sahu and six others. The petitioners had challenged a notification issued by the General Administration (GA) department on January 15, 2022. The GA department first amended the Odisha Civil Services (Fixation of Upper Age Limit) Rules, 1989 through a notification on January 11, 2022.
The amended provision increased the upper age limit from 32 to 38 for the advertisements issued during 2021, 2022 and 2023. Subsequently, in the January 15, 2022 notification, the 38-year upper age limit was made applicable only in cases of advertisements in which the last date of receiving applications was still not over on January 11, 2022.
The amended upper age limit rules were applicable for the Combined Recruitment Examination for Group B posts of Odisha Police. The petitioners aged 33 to 34 years were not able to apply for the SI posts in response to OPRB’s advertisement issued on June 22, 2021, due to the upper age limit.
While the GA department’s January 11, 2022 notification made them eligible to apply for the posts, the subsequent one issued on January 15, 2022, deprived them of the opportunity, the petitioners contended while seeking the court’s intervention against it.