Punjab & Haryana HC Panel Finds Recruitment Errors, Recommends Entire PSRLM Result Be Redrawn

Chandigarh: The Punjab and Haryana High Court has received a report from a Court-appointed Scrutiny Committee finding widespread errors and lack of uniformity in the evaluation of applications for outsourced posts under the Punjab State Rural Livelihoods Mission (PSRLM), with the Committee recommending that the entire result be redrawn from scratch.

The report was submitted in connection with a batch of writ petitions, challenging the selection process conducted pursuant to PSRLM Recruitment Notice No. 126 dated 28.01.2026 for posts including Block Programme Manager, under the Department of Rural Development and Panchayat, Punjab.

The petitioners had contended that although the selection process carried 100 marks 70 for the written examination and 30 for interview, experience and qualification the respondents neither awarded nor disclosed the marks obtained under the 30-mark component, and that the final selection list was uploaded without any authorised signature, official seal or date.

Justice Sandeep Moudgil, on noticing that the result did not disclose head-wise allocation of marks and was not duly authenticated, had directed the respondents to produce the original recruitment record before the Court. Upon its production and scrutiny, the Court found that the evaluation record had been maintained only in a 70/10 format for written examination and interview, without any separate assessment reflecting marks for educational qualification and experience, despite the advertisement specifically providing 10 marks each for those heads.

Terming the matter one requiring independent and comprehensive scrutiny given the bulk of the record and the seriousness of the allegations, the Court by order dated 23.07.2026 constituted a four-member Committee headed by Mr. Vishal Sharma, Advocate, as Amicus Curiae, assisted by Ms. Anjali Singh, Advocate, and two departmental officers, Mr. Harmandeep Singh, Deputy Director, and Mr. Amrinderpal Singh, DDPO. The Committee was tasked with verifying whether application forms were accompanied by requisite documents, whether experience certificates were validly issued and considered, and whether marks under each head had been awarded fairly, uniformly and consistently with the notified criteria.

In its report running to seventeen pages, the Committee, after examining application forms and original records relating to approximately 1,200 to 1,300 candidates across the State, District and Block Mission Management Units, found that the anomalies were not confined to the three petitioners alone but reflected a recurring lack of uniformity across the process attributable, in the Committee's assessment, to the exercise having been conducted through a State-level committee alongside 23 separate district-level committees without a common calculation framework.

Scrutinising the individual cases, the Committee found that petitioner Ramandeep Bains had correctly been treated as ineligible for want of relevant experience, that petitioner Nisha Kumari's recorded total of 59.51 was understated by nearly ten marks on account of an incomplete academic calculation and an arithmetic error, and that petitioner Meenakshi Devi's recorded total of 60.86 was short by 7.5 marks due to the interview component having been omitted from the final addition despite being separately recorded.

Recommending a comprehensive redo, the Committee proposed that the entire result list be redrawn in two stages first a list of ineligible candidates, to be published with reasons and a week's window for objections, followed by a final list of eligible candidates and a fresh merit list disclosing marks under each head separately along with remarks. 

It recommended that the exercise be carried out departmentally rather than through an outsourced agency, be confined strictly to documents already on record, and apply a uniform CGPA-conversion formula across similarly placed candidates.

The report has been placed before the Court for further orders.

Appearances:

For the Petitioner(s): Mr. Shourya Mehra, Advocate and Ms. Niharika Mittal, Advocate.

For the State: Mr. TPS Walia, AAG Punjab.

For Respondent No.5: Mr. Vijay Kumar Jindal, Sr. Advocate with Mr. Sandeep Jain, Mr. Sachin Jain, Mr. Abhishek Shukla and Ms. Garima Jindal, Advocates.

Case Title: Meenakshi Devi vs. State of Punjab and others, CWP-17756-2026 (with connected CWP-18032-2026 and CWP-18211-2026)