Allahabad HC Dismisses Review of EWS Recruitment Ruling; Missing Page Not an Error Apparent on Record

The Allahabad High Court rejected a review application by Tapish Sharma, holding that an allegedly missing page from written instructions did not constitute an error apparent on the face of the record warranting review, and that the applicant had in any event applied under the Unreserved category from the outset.

The Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court on 10 June 2026 dismissed Civil Misc. Review Application No. 65 of 2025 filed by Tapish Sharma, seeking review of paragraphs 2 and 4 of a judgment dated 21 April 2025 in Tapish Sharma v. State of U.P. and Others (Writ-A No. 4076 of 2025). Justice Karunesh Singh Pawar, sitting singly, found no error apparent on the face of the record. The applicant had contended that his EWS certificate was omitted from the written instructions placed before the Court during the original writ hearing, causing the Court to proceed on an incorrect factual premise. The State denied any manipulation and demonstrated before the Court that the allegedly missing page was in fact present in the original record. The review application was dismissed as lacking merit.

The Dispute Before the Court

Tapish Sharma had applied for the post of Assistant Operator (Radio Cadre) pursuant to Advertisement dated 6 January 2022, claiming entitlement under the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) reservation category. He asserted that he had uploaded a valid EWS certificate issued by the competent authority along with his online application form, and that he had secured higher marks than the last selected EWS candidate. Despite this, he was denied consideration under the EWS category.

His writ petition was dismissed by a reasoned order dated 21 April 2025. He then filed the present review application, asserting that the written instructions furnished to the Court on that date were incomplete. Specifically, he claimed that page 16 of those instructions, which contained his uploaded EWS certificate, was omitted — causing the Court to decide the writ petition on a factually incorrect footing.

The review sought modification of paragraphs 2 and 4 of the 21 April 2025 judgment, which the applicant contended were tainted by this factual error.

State's Counter-Position and Original Record

The State, represented by Ms. Deepshikha, Chief Standing Counsel-II, assisted by Mr. Ashwani Singh, contested the review application as wholly misconceived. The State's consistent position was that the applicant had never applied under the EWS category in the original online application form — that he had consciously submitted his candidature under the Unreserved (UR) category. Once an applicant opts for the UR category at the stage of submission of the online form, no subsequent claim for migration or conversion to the EWS category could be entertained, contrary to the express terms of the advertisement and governing selection conditions.

The State further submitted that the final select list had already been declared on 26 March 2025 and forwarded to the Inspector General of Police for further necessary action, after which the jurisdiction of the Recruitment Board came to an end. On the EWS certificate itself, the State's position was that the certificate uploaded by the applicant was not in the prescribed format. As for the alleged missing page, the State maintained that even if page 16 was inadvertently omitted from the compilation, no prejudice was caused because the document was otherwise available on record.

The Court, in the interest of justice, summoned the officer who had provided the written instructions. In compliance with the order dated 13 May 2026, Shri Satyarth Aniruddha Pankaj, Deputy Inspector General (Personnel, Selection & Recruitment/Promotion Board), appeared before the Court on 20 May 2026. The Chief Standing Counsel then produced the original records and demonstrated that page nos. 16/17 of the application form uploaded by the petitioner were identical to running page 22 of the written instructions already on record.

The Applicant's Further Submissions on Review

Counsel for the applicant, Dr. Pooja Sharma, pressed an additional ground before the Court: that due to a technical glitch in the computer application system, the applicant was shown under the Unreserved category while filling the original online form, and that this was attributable to a system error for which he ought not to suffer.

She placed reliance on judgments of the Supreme Court in Karnail Singh v. State of Haryana and Others, AIR 2024 SC 2694; Union Public Service Commission v. Gaurav Singh and Others (Civil Appeal No. 4152 of 2022, decided on 18 May 2022); and decisions of co-ordinate benches of the Allahabad High Court in Rajat Yadav v. State of U.P. (Writ-A No. 779 of 2023), Kumari Soni Singh v. State of U.P. and Others (Writ-A No. 4139 of 2025), and Renu v. State of U.P. and Others (Writ-A No. 21430 of 2022). The thrust of her argument was that procedural technicalities should not override substantive justice and that an otherwise eligible candidate cannot be denied reservation benefits on hyper-technical grounds.

The State rebutted the system-error plea by pointing out that several thousand candidates had participated in the same recruitment process and submitted their online applications, and that only the applicant had raised a grievance regarding alleged malfunctioning of the Recruitment Board's computer system. The State contended that such a plea, raised for the first time, could not be readily accepted without any supporting material. On the judgment in Kumari Soni Singh, the State submitted it was clearly distinguishable: in that case the candidate had admittedly applied under the EWS category, whereas in the present case the applicant had applied under the UR category from the very inception.

How the Bench Reasoned on Review Jurisdiction

Justice Pawar began by setting out the settled scope of review jurisdiction, drawing primarily on the Supreme Court's judgment in Kamlesh Verma v. Mayawati and Others, (2013) 8 SCC 320. That judgment holds that review is maintainable only on three grounds: discovery of new and important matter or evidence which, despite due diligence, was not within the knowledge of the applicant or could not be produced earlier; mistake or error apparent on the face of the record; or any other sufficient reason analogous thereto. The Court also reiterated that “review is not an appeal in disguise” and that the Court cannot reappreciate evidence or rehear the matter on merits. These principles were also noted as having been reiterated in Karnail Singh v. State of Haryana and Vikram Singh alias Vicky Walia v. State of Punjab and Another, (2017) 8 SCC 518.

Applying these parameters, the Court examined whether the plea regarding missing page 16 could constitute a ground for review. It held that mere omission, misplacement, or non-tagging of a particular page in a compilation of documents does not automatically render the judgment under review erroneous, unless it is further shown that the omission resulted in a patent error apparent on the face of the record or occasioned a manifest miscarriage of justice.

The Court went on to identify the factual enquiries that the applicant's plea would necessarily require: whether page 16 was in fact part of the original set of instructions; whether it was omitted inadvertently or deliberately; what its exact nature and contents were; whether it was otherwise available elsewhere on record; and what impact, if any, it would have had on the conclusions already recorded. The Court held that all these questions required appreciation of facts and scrutiny of evidence that travel outside the narrow confines of review jurisdiction.

On the factual position after the original record was produced, the Court found that page nos. 16/17 of the application form uploaded by the applicant were present in the original record and identical to running page 22 of the written instructions. This made the contention that the instructions were manipulated to mislead the Court appear misconceived.

The Court also addressed the structural argument that the writ petition judgment had rested on the missing page alone. It rejected this framing, observing that the judgment of 21 April 2025 was not founded solely upon the presence or absence of one page, but upon the overall pleadings, written instructions, conditions of the advertisement, and submissions advanced by counsel. Attempting to attribute the entire judgment to the alleged omission of page 16 was therefore equally misconceived.

On the applicable threshold for review, the Court reiterated: unless an error is manifest, self-evident, and strikes one on mere perusal of the record without requiring any process of reasoning, it cannot be corrected in review proceedings. The plea regarding page 16, requiring elaborate examination and factual adjudication, did not satisfy that standard.

On the admitted fact that the applicant had applied under the Unreserved category, the Court noted that this was the State's consistent and categorical stand — supported by the original record — and that no prejudice appeared to have been caused by the omission of page 16 given this admitted position. The EWS certificate was also found to not have been in the prescribed format. The system-error plea was noted as raised for the first time and unsupported by material, given that thousands of other candidates had applied in the same process without raising any similar grievance.

Order

Justice Karunesh Singh Pawar found no error apparent on the face of the record warranting interference with the judgment and order under review. The review application was dismissed as lacking merit on 10 June 2026.