The Allahabad high court has held that a candidate who applies online within time and dispatches the hard copy of the application within the prescribed period by a mode of transmission permitted by the advertisement can’t be excluded from the selection process merely because the postal article reached the recruiting authority after the cut-off date.
With this observation, Justice Manju Rani Chauhan in her October 8 judgment directed the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (UPPSC) to accept the hard copy of petitioner Anuradha till October 16 and accordingly consider her candidature for recruitment to medical education department.
“The recruiting authority, having itself prescribed and sanctioned transmission through registered post/speed post cannot, in the same breath, disown the consequences of that very mode of transmission and visit an otherwise diligent candidate with the drastic civil consequence of exclusion from the selection process”, the court said.
By an advertisement dated August 18, 2026, applications were invited for posts under the medical education department to be filled only by interview. The online application and fee were due by September 1, 2026, and the hard copy of the form along with the requisite documents had to reach the UPPSC by 5:00 p.m. on September 15, 2026, by registered post, speed post or by hand.
The petitioner applied online and paid the fee on August 31, 2026, and sent the hard copy by registered post on September 8, 2026. It reached the UPPSC office at Prayagraj on September 16, 2026, a day after the cut-off and was refused with an endorsement to that effect made on the envelope.
{{/usCountry}}The petitioner applied online and paid the fee on August 31, 2026, and sent the hard copy by registered post on September 8, 2026. It reached the UPPSC office at Prayagraj on September 16, 2026, a day after the cut-off and was refused with an endorsement to that effect made on the envelope.
{{/usCountry}}The postal authorities informed the petitioner that offices in Delhi/New Delhi had been closed from September 11, 2026 to September 13, 2026 on account of the 18th BRICS Leaders’ Summit. A representation to the UPPSC dated September 30, 2026 drew no response.
The counsel for the UPPSC submitted that the hard copy received after the last date prescribed, could not be accepted. The court found that the tracking report established timely dispatch and nothing on record suggested any want of diligence on the candidate.
The court relied on the decision of the Supreme Court in “Ashutosh Agnihotri v. High Court of Madhya Pradesh and Another”, where an application sent by speed post within time reached the high court a day after the last date and the rejection founded on that delay was set aside.
The court thus recognised that, where timely dispatch and absence of negligence on the part of the candidate are established, a subsequent delay in postal delivery, being beyond the candidate’s control, cannot by itself constitute a valid ground for exclusion from the selection process.
The court held that the UPPSC had erred in returning the hard copy on account of the marginal delay in its postal delivery.