SC dismisses Haryana’s plea against quashing of extra marks policy, says move ‘populist measure’

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday upheld a Punjab and Haryana High Court order quashing the Haryana government’s policy of granting additional marks to its residents in recruitment exams.

Terming the Haryana government’s policy a “populist measure”, a vacation bench of Justice Abhay S Oka and Justice Rajesh Bindal refused to interfere with the high court order, which had held as unconstitutional the socioeconomic criteria prescribed by the Haryana government to grant additional marks to certain classes of candidates in state government jobs.

“After perusing the impugned judgment, we find absolutely no error in the impugned judgment. The special leave petitions are dismissed,” the bench said.

As the hearing commenced, the apex court expressed disinclination to entertain the case and said, “Meritorious candidate after his performance gets 60 marks, somebody else has also got 60 marks but only because (of) five grace marks he goes up. They are all populist measures. How do you defend such an action that somebody is getting five marks extra?”

Justifying the policy, Attorney General R Venkataramani said the Haryana govt introduced the grace marks policy to give opportunities to those who were deprived of the security of public employment.Venkataramani also pointed to the high court’s direction of reconducting written tests and said the application of socioeconomic criteria took place after the written test stage and not upon the Common Eligibility Test (CET). The top court, however, junked the appeal.

The SC was hearing an appeal filed by the Haryana Staff Selection Commission against the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s May 31 order.

On May 31, the high court struck down the state government’s policy of granting five per cent bonus marks on the socioeconomic status of the candidate, who is a state resident, to the total percentage of marks in the CET for groups C and D posts. It ruled that no state can restrict employment to its own residents alone by allowing the benefit of five per cent weightage in marks and had said, “The respondents (state govt) have created an artificial classification to the similarly situated candidates applying for the post.”