HC to hear on Jul 20 plea to resume recruitment process cancelled due to Agnipath scheme

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday said it would hear on Wednesday a plea seeking direction to the armed forces to resume the recruitment process cancelled due to the introduction of the Agnipath scheme and prepare the final merit list after conducting a written examination within a stipulated time.

The Agnipath scheme, announced on June 14, 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 per cent of them for 15 more years. Protests had erupted in several states against the scheme.

Later, the 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 present petition along with several pleas challenging the Agnipath 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 in the Indian Army.

He said that an advertisement was issued by the authorities through the Army recruitment centre, Hisar, from July 30 to August 8, 2020 and several other advertisements were also issued through over 28 centres across the country.

The plea said the petitioner along with others applied for the respective posts and their physical and medical examinations were also conducted and he cleared it successfully.

The petitioner was waiting to appear in the written examination, that is, the Common Entrance Examination (CEE) which was scheduled to be conducted on July 25, 2021 but was postponed on account of COVID-19 pandemic.

“Shockingly, in the month of June 2022, the petitioner came to know that the respondent no. 1 (Union of India through Ministry of Defence) has implemented a new recruitment scheme to join in the Indian Defence Services under Agnipath Scheme, wherein the candidates will join forces for four years initially and after four years, only 25 per cent will be absorbed in the permanent commission of the Indian Army,” the plea said.

It added that the petitioner found on the official website of the authorities that consequent to the implementation of the Agnipath Scheme for armed forces recruitment, the ministry has stopped and cancelled all pending process including CEE of Indian Army recruitment for the previous recruiting years.

Consequently, the candidates including the petitioner were asked to apply under the Agnipath scheme afresh, it said, adding that non-selection of the candidates for appointment to various posts in the Indian defence services by the authorities pursuant to Scheme notification is “illegal, arbitrary, improper and discriminative”.

The plea sought direction from the authorities to resume all the recruitment processes cancelled due to the introduction of the scheme and conduct written examination, that is, CEE in all pending centres, including the Army recruitment centre in Hisar.

Thereafter, prepare merit list and give permanent commission to the selected candidates as per the scheme of advertisements, prior to introduction of Agnipath scheme across the country within a stipulated time frame, the plea sought.

A petition seeking to complete the recruitment process in the Indian Air Force as per a 2019 notification without being affected by the scheme is also pending in the high court and is now scheduled to come up for hearing on July 20.

Another plea relates to early hearing application in a pending petition which challenges the Indian Navy's employment advertisement reserving its right for shortlisting applicants by increasing the cut-off marks obtained by them in class 12 examination, claiming that it was contrary to the already laid down eligibility criteria in the advertisement after their applications were received for recruitment as Person Below Officer Rank (PBOR) in the force.