Neutral Citation No. - 2025:AHC-LKO:41521 Court No. - 18 Case :- WRIT - A No. - 7860 of 2025 Petitioner :- Dhananjay Srivastava Respondent :- U.P. Public Service Commission Prayagraj 10 Kasturba Gandhi Thru. Secy. And Another Counsel for Petitioner :- Jitendra Singh Counsel for Respondent :- Raj Kumar Upadhyaya (R.K.Upadhyaya),C.S.C. Hon'ble Manish Mathur,J. 1. Heard Mr. Jitendra Singh, learned counsel for petitioner, Mr. Ravi Shankar Tiwari, learned counsel for opposite party no.1 and learned State Counsel for opposite party no.2. 2. Petition has been filed challenging condition no.11 (13) of the advertisement dated 17.12.2024 for purposes of recruitment on the post of Assistant Engineer. Further prayer for a direction to concerned authority to conduct the selection process ignoring aforesaid condition has also been sought. 3. It is submitted that as per condition no.11 (13) of the aforesaid advertisement, it is prescribed that minimum efficiency standard for SC/ST candidates would be 35% and for other category candidates, would be 40% for purposes of securing marks in the preliminary/main examination. He has thereafter adverted to paragraph 11 (8) of the aforesaid advertisement to submit that it has been instructed that on the basis of result of preliminary examination, fifteen times candidates to the number of vacancies shall be declared successful for the main examination and three times candidates to the number of vacancies shall be called for interview. 4. It is submitted that aforesaid two conditions of the advertisement are clearly contradictory since it may be possible that fifteen times candidates to the number of vacancies may not be available in view of the cut-off percentage indicated in the advertisement in paragraph-11 (13). 5. Learned counsel for opposite party no.1 has been provided written instructions dated 18.07.2025, a copy of which is taken on record and submits that there is no contradiction in the aforesaid conditions of advertisement since paragraph-11(13) of the advertisement clearly indicates cut-off marks to be secured by a candidate for passing the preliminary/main examinations and condition indicated in paragraph-11(8) of advertisement is not mandatory in nature. It is, therefore, submitted that fifteen times the number of vacancies would be called only if they are available and not beyond that capacity. It is submitted that aforesaid conditions have been prescribed on the basis of the ललक ससवव आयलग ( पककयव कव कवकनयमन) अधधकनयम, 1985. It is submitted that challenge to same had earlier also been raised and has been negatived in Special Appeal No. 142 of 2019, U.P. Public Service Commission versus Sangeeta and others in its judgment and order dated 05.03.2019. 6. Upon consideration of submission advanced by learned counsel for parties and perusal of material on record, it is evident that there does not appear to be any arbitrariness in fixing the cut-off marks as indicated in paragraph-11 (13) of the advertisement dated 17.12.2024. The only contradiction indicated by learned counsel for petitioner is on the basis of paragraph-11 (8) of the advertisement. However, upon examination of the aforesaid paragraph, it appears that though not happily worded, fifteen times candidates to the number of vacancies are required to be declared successful only if they adhered to the cut-off marks indicated in paragrah-11 (13) of the advertisement. The condition indicated in paragraph-11 (13) of the advertisement being a sine qua non, the conditions indicated in paragraph-11(8) of the advertisement would be subservient to the paragraph-11 (13) of the condition and only in case such a condition stands fulfilled. 7. In view thereof, the condition indicated in paragraph-11 (8) of the advertisement would clearly be directory and not mandatory so far as it requires declaring successful fifteen times candidates to the number of vacancies is concerned. 8. The aforesaid aspect has also been considered by Division Bench of this Court in the case of Sangeeta (supra). 9. It has also been submitted by learned counsel for opposite party no.1 that even otherwise petitioner has not secured the minimum cut-off required and therefore, also does not have any locus to challenge the same. 10. In view of aforesaid, the petition fails and is dismissed at the admission stage itself. Parties to bear their own cost. Order Date :- 21.7.2025 Satish Digitally signed by :- SATISH KUMAR BHARATI High Court of Judicature at Allahabad, Lucknow Bench