IN THE HIGH COURT OF HIMACHAL PRADESH, SHIMLA CWP No.385 of 2025 Date of Decision: 28.08.2025 _______________________________________________________ Suchitra …….Petitioner Versus State of HP & Ors. … Respondents Coram: Hon’ble Mr. Justice Sandeep Sharma, Judge. Whether approved for reporting? 1 Yes. For the Petitioner: Mr. Sanjeev Bhushan, Senior Advocate with Mr. Sparsh Bhushan, Advocate. For the Respondents: Mr. Anup Rattan, Advocate General, Mr. Rajan Kahol, Mr. Vishal Panwar & Mr. B.C. Verma, Additional Advocate Generals, with Mr. Ravi Chauhan, Deputy Advocate General, for the respondents-State. Mr. Surinder Parkash Sharma, Advocate, for respondent No. 5. ____________________________________________________ Sandeep Sharma, Judge(oral): By way of instant petition, petitioner has prayed for the following reliefs:- “a) That an appropriate writ, order or directions may kindly be issued and the selection of respondent No. 5 may kindly be quashed and set aside by calling the appointment letter, if any, issued to respondent No. 5 in the interest of law and justice. 1Whether the reporters of the local papers may be allowed to see the judgment? 2 b) That an appropriate writ, order or directions may kindly be issued and action of respondent No. 4 declaring the petitioner overage may very kindly be quashed and set aside. (c) That an appropriate writ, order or directions may kindly be issued and respondents may kindly be directed to offer appointment to the petitioner being the meritorious one from the same date when respondent No. 5 was given appointment letter, if any, with all consequential benefits of pay, arrears seniority etc. and the arrears from the said date may be ordered to be granted along with interest @ 9% p.a.” 2. Precisely, the facts of the case, as emerge from the record are that respondent-department, vide advertisement dated 18.10.2023 (Annexure P-1), invited applications for the engagement of 2061 Van Mitra, in terms of Scheme formulated by the Forest Department. As per aforesaid advertisement, selection was to be made on the basis of total marks obtained by the candidate, out of 100. Since out of 100 marks, 10 marks were kept for the viva voce/interview, aforesaid advertisement came to be laid challenge before this Court by way of Civil Writ Petition. In the afore petition, this Court set aside the process of holding viva-voce for 10 marks as a result of which advertisement dated 18.10.2023 (Annexure P-1) came to be modified. 3. Thereafter, vide communication dated 29.10.2024 (Annexure P-2), fresh evaluation criteria was approved for selection of 3 Van Mitra, with total 90 marks, out of which 75 marks were for education and 15 marks were for other documents. Pursuant to afore notification, petitioner submitted an application dated 11.01.2024. Since petitioner was found eligible to participate in the selection process, she was issued Admit Card and thereafter, she was called for ground test on 12.02.2024. Petitioner successfully qualified the Physical Efficiency Test as provided under Clause C.5 of the Scheme for the engagement of Van Mitra. After her having qualified Physical Efficiency Test, petitioner was called for documents verification on 14.11.2024. After verification of the documents, Selection Committee declared the result, wherein petitioner was declared unsuccessful on the ground that she was overage at the time of her making application. Subsequently petitioner received some information under Right to Information Act suggestive of the fact that though she was at No. 1 in the merit list having secured 64.1 marks; second candidate, namely Rohit was at serial No. 2 having secured 50.35 marks and the third candidate namely Balveer Singh, respondent No. 5 was at serial No. 3 having secured 48.95 marks (Annexure P-6). Interestingly, information received by the candidate at serial No. 2, Rohit (Annexure P-7) revealed that petitioner was at serial No. 3 having secured 64.10 marks, but not qualified due to age and selected candidate namely 4 Balbir Singh, respondent No. 5 was shown at serial No.1 with 48.95 marks and Rohit’s marks were reduced to 48.35. In the afore background, petitioner has approached this Court in the instant proceedings, praying therein for the following reliefs, as have been reproduced hereinabove. 4. Vide communication dated 13.12.2024, petitioner herein came to be apprised that as per Clause C.3 of the Scheme, she was not eligible to participate in the selection process as she had become overage on the date of filing/submitting application. 5. In nutshell, grouse of the petitioner is that though on the date of submission of application, she had turned 25, but she had not become overage, in terms of C.3 of the Scheme, which itself provided that applicant should not be less than 18 years or more than 25 years on the last date of submission of application. Admittedly, petitioner had turned 25 years of age on the date of submitting her application i.e. 15.01.2024, as she was born on 15.01.1999, but now question, which needs to be determined in the instant proceedings is that “whether the petitioner has become overage in terms of C.3 of the advertisement?” At this stage, it would be apt to take note of Clause C.3 of the Scheme for engagement of Van Mitra Himachal Pradesh Forest Department (Annexure P-4), which reads as under:- 5 “C.3. Age Criteria: That candidate should not be less than 18 years & not more than 25 years of age as on the last date of receipt of applications.” 6. As per aforesaid provision, candidate should not be less than 18 years & not more than 25 years of age as on the last date of receipt of applications. Mr. Sanjeev Bhushan, learned Senior Counsel for the petitioner, vehemently argued that though on 15.01.2024, which was last date for the submission of the application, petitioner had become 25 years old, but her application could not have been rejected on the ground of her being overage, for the reason that on the given date, she had completed 25 years of age. However, by no stretch of imagination, she could be said to be of more than 25 years of age. Mr. Bhushan, submitted that on 15.01.2024, petitioner was of 25 years old and she would have turned more than of 25. He further submitted that though for all intents and purposes, petitioner could be said to be of 25 years of age on 15.1.2024, but since it stood specifically provided in Clause C.3 of the Scheme that candidate should not be less than 18 years & not more than 25 years of age as on the last date of receipt of applications, coupled with the fact that petitioner had submitted application on the last day, her application could not be rejected on the ground of her being overage. 6 7. To the contrary, Mr. Surinder Parkash Sharma, learned counsel for respondent No. 5, vehemently argued that since petitioner was born on 15.01.1999, she would be deemed to have completed 25 years of age on 14.01.2024, therefore, no illegality can be said to have been committed by the respondents, while rejecting the candidature of the petitioner on account of her being overage. 8. Mr. Vishal Panwar, learned Additional Advocate General, while referring to the reply filed by the respondents No. 1 to 4, also submitted that since on 15.01.2024, petitioner had crossed 25 of years of age, her application rightly came to be rejected on account of her being overage. 9. The proposition here, in a way is very unique. Firstly, if C.3 is seen, for lower age, it is inclusive i.e. a person, can apply for the post, if he completes 18 years, by last date of submission, but the way, respondents have applied it for upper age, it is not inclusive and a person who might be 25 years of age, on the date of opening of date for submission, but may earn disqualification, if he/she turns 25 years before last date of submission of application. So the clause itself discriminates in the matter of lower and upper age limits, meaning thereby a person attaining age of 18 years on any day between opening and closed dates will be eligible, whereas, a person 7 in higher range, can become ineligible merely on account of completing 25 years on any day after opening date. Second aspect of the matter is that though time is a continuous factor, but for convenience, we divide it into minutes, hours, day, month and so on. Here the day is being considered a unit and assumption may be that the birthday is first day of a year and hence, on every birthday, a person, enters first day of next year. But if we go down to lower units of time, viz. hours and minutes, a person, will complete full one year, a minute before the time, he was born. To explain further, a person, who might have been born at 9.30 am on a particular day, will complete full one year at 9.29.59 am and at 9.30 am, next day would start. However, since, in the present case, day has been taken as a unit, it would be unfair to assume that the petitioner became overage on 15.1.2024, firstly, when no time has been given in C.3 and only date has been mentioned and secondly, the petitioner was eligible till 14.1.2024, but was declared ineligible on account of the fact that on 15.1.2024, she had completed 25 years of age. Though, for the purposes of retirement of an incumbent, it is assumed that a person born on first day of month, would complete age of retirement on previous date and thus, such a person is retired on last date the month preceding month. Similar is the case in the matter of income 8 tax, where also a person is assumed to have completed one year on the day preceding birthday. However, in the present case, since applications are opened on one date and closes on another, it would be arbitrary to oust a person, on account of completing upper age on last date of submission of application. 10. From the above, two conclusions can be drawn, either the petitioner completed 25 years on 15.1.2024, one minute before the time of birth, in which case, it cannot be said that on last date of submission of application, she had become overage; and otherwise, petitioner was below 25 years of age from the opening date for submission of application till a day before last date for submission of application and when for lower age limit it is inclusive, same criteria should be adopted for upper age also. 11. Consequently, in view of the above, this Court finds merit in the present petition and accordingly, the same is allowed. Impugned order dated 13.12.2024 (Annexure P-8) is hereby quashed and set aside. Respondents are directed to offer appointment to the petitioner against post of Van Mitra, pursuant to her having participated in selection process. Appointment of the private respondent against the post in question is hereby quashed and set 9 aside. Pending miscellaneous application(s), if any also stand disposed of accordingly. (Sandeep Sharma), Judge August 28, 2025 (Sunil)