HC issues notice on plea seeking age relaxation for Sub Inspector recruitment

LE Correspondent

Chandigarh, July 15, 2021: The Punjab and Haryana High Court has issued notice to the Punjab government over a petition filed by 56 applicants for the post of Sub-Inspector in the state Police seeking age-limit relaxation from 28 years to 32 years.

The petitioners, Navdeep Singh Brar and others, have argued that the age mentioned in the advertisement for the recruitment of 560 Sub Inspectors (SI) in different cadres is 28 years.

The plea said the present recruitment/notification was to come last year in July as announced by Chief Minister Amarinder Singh. It was also announced that the upper age limit has been increased from 28 years to 32 years for the recruitment of Sub Inspectors.

However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the notification for the said post got delayed and was issued earlier this month on July 6, 2021. But due to the delay, the age of petitioners crossed 28 years, it said.

“The Punjab CM had announced that the upper age limit has been increased from 28 years to 32 years for the post of SI and the recruitment would start from the month of July 2020. However, in the present notification, the upper age limit is still 28 and not enhanced to 32 years,” the petitioners contended.

According to them, Punjab Director General of Police has the power to relax the upper age limit under special circumstances and the case of the petitioners falls under special circumstances because of the fact that the examination for the post was not conducted for the last five years and it is a natural process that the age of the person will not stop.

The petitioners have thus sought directions to the state of Punjab to give an age relaxation to them for applying for the post of SI, which was advertised on July 6, 2021.

The matter will come up for hearing on August 18.