Agnipath Scheme: Plea in Delhi HC seeks to resume cancelled recruitment process

New Delhi: A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) was moved in the Delhi High Court seeking resumption of all previous recruitment processes cancelled following the Centre’s newly-launched Agnipath Scheme. The plea of a candidate, filed through Advocates Vijay Singh and Pawan Kumar, said the petitioner had applied for the post of Soldier General Duty in Army […]

New Delhi: A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) was moved in the Delhi High Court seeking resumption of all previous recruitment processes cancelled following the Centre’s newly-launched Agnipath Scheme.

The plea of a candidate, filed through Advocates Vijay Singh and Pawan Kumar, said the petitioner had applied for the post of Soldier General Duty in Army Recruitment Rally at Sirsa from July 30, 2020 to August 8, 2020.

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Later, Physical and medical examinations of the candidates were conducted and admit cards for the Common Entrance Examination (CEE) were issued for those selected in the process, said the plea.

“Unfortunately, the proposed written examination has been deferred/ postponed by the Respondents, illegally and arbitrarily, several times, by citing Covid-19 outburst. However, several other examinations took place comfortably including UPSC, NEET, Delhi Judiciary (including higher judiciary), etc., but CEE was deliberately put on hold for the reasons best known to the respondents,” the plea stated.

“Shockingly, in light of a new scheme introduced by the Union of India, i.e, “AGNIPATH SCHEME”, the Respondents arbitrarily cancelled all the pending recruitment process (of years 2020 and 2021), including conducting CEE and asked all the candidates to appear through “AGNIPATH SCHEME” afresh,” it said further.

The plea contended that “the non-selection of the petitioner along with other candidates for appointment to various posts in the Indian Defence services by the Respondents pursuant to the Notification of Recruitment by “AGNIPATH SCHEME” is illegal, arbitrary, improper and discriminative.”

In another development, the Supreme Court on Tuesday transferred all the writ petitions challenging the Agnipath scheme for the armed forces before it to the Delhi High Court, where a similar challenge against the scheme is already pending.

On July 6, a similar plea was moved by various candidates who have been shortlisted as Airmen in the Indian Air Force seeking issuance of enrollment list and completion of previous recruitment as per a 2019 notification, without being affected by the Centre’s new Agnipath recruitment scheme for the armed forces.