Infallibility is unknown to humanity: HC relief to SC candidate who had applied under ST

The High Court has observed that a trivial error cannot take away the right of a Scheduled Caste candidate for consideration of his name as a candidate belonging to the Scheduled Caste.

Justice M Nagaprasanna said this while directing the Karnataka Public Service Commission (KPSC) to rectify the error and treat the petitioner as one belonging to SC category and regulate the provisional/final select list with the merit of the petitioner, with all consequential benefits flowing thereto.

The petitioner N Hemanth Kumar, a resident of Challakere taluk of Chitradurga district, had applied for the post of Junior Assistant/Second Division Assistant, notified on February 29, 2020. Though he belonged to SC category, while submitting the application online, Hemanth Kumar filled it as ST category. Noticing the error, the petitioner made efforts to change the category online and claimed that the change was accepted.

Subsequent to the written test, held on September 19, 2021, the merit list was announced and Hemanth was called for document verification on September 8, 2022. It was at this stage that Hemanth realized that his category has not been changed. The petitioner claimed that he had immediately filed an affidavit, enclosing the caste certificate issued in 2013. The KPSC refused to accept it.

On the other hand, the commission argued that it cannot look into every case where errors have crept in and if such a plea is permitted, it would open Pandora’s Box.

“I decline to accept the submission of the Commission, if this order opens up Pandora’s Box; so be it, if it becomes a precedent; so be that. The Commission ought to have corrected the trivial human error when the petitioner pointed it out at the time of document verification. It cannot be forgotten that, “to err is human”, infallibility is unknown to humanity,” Justice Nagaprasanna said.