Delhi HC Rejects CRPF Inspectors' Plea Over Tattoo-Based Rejection for Assistant Commandant Post

Two CRPF Inspectors denied promotion to Assistant Commandant after a forearm tattoo made them medically unfit failed to persuade the Delhi High Court to order re-examination.

The Delhi High Court has dismissed two writ petitions filed by serving CRPF Inspectors who were declared medically unfit for promotion to Assistant Commandant (GD) because of a tattoo on their right forearm. A Division Bench of Justice Anil Kshetarpal and Justice Amit Mahajan, in a judgment authored by Justice Mahajan, held that the tattoo was not permissible under the applicable recruitment medical guidelines and that removing it after being found unfit could not cure the ineligibility that existed at the time of assessment. The petitioners, Ankit Maan and Pradhan Choudhary, had sought a fresh Review Medical Examination after undergoing surgery to remove the tattoo, relying on a line of Delhi HC precedents that had permitted such relief in other recruitment matters.

Two Inspectors, One Rejected Promotion Bid

Ankit Maan joined the CRPF as a Sub Inspector on February 16, 2012, while Pradhan Choudhary joined as a Constable on April 26, 2010. Both were later promoted to the rank of Inspector, in 2022 and 2023 respectively. While serving in that rank, they applied for selection to the post of Assistant Commandant (GD) in the Central Armed Police Forces through the Limited Departmental Competitive Examination – 2023, floated under an advertisement dated April 8, 2024.

Both petitioners cleared the written examination held on June 30, 2024, and figured in the list of successful candidates issued on July 13, 2024. They also cleared the Physical Standard Test and the Physical Efficiency Test, with results published on July 29, 2024. The trouble arose at the next stage. In the detailed medical examination conducted on August 30, 2024, both were declared unfit on account of a tattoo on the right forearm. They sought a review, which was conducted the very next day, on August 31, 2024. The Review Medical Examination Report, dated September 3, 2024, confirmed the earlier finding — unfit, for the same reason.

Whether the Guidelines Impose an Absolute Bar on Tattoos

Counsel for the petitioners argued that the advertisement itself did not bar candidates with tattoos, and that the Guidelines for Recruitment Medical Examination in CAPF and Assam Rifles, as revised in May 2015, only prescribe the permissible content, location and size of a tattoo — they do not say that having one automatically renders a candidate unfit. It was also argued that the review board sat only a day after the initial examination, leaving no time to remedy the defect, and that the tattoo had never affected the petitioners' unhindered service as Inspectors. Since they had since undergone surgery to remove it, counsel urged the Court to direct a fresh Review Medical Examination.

Six coordinate bench decisions were cited in support, including Nihal Singh v. Union of India and Pradeep v. Union of India, where candidates found unfit for tattoos had been permitted a further review after removal.

The Union of India countered that the guidelines, read with Ministry of Home Affairs communications dated May 20, 2015 and May 31, 2021, permit tattoos only on the left forearm's inner aspect — the non-saluting limb — or the dorsum of the hand, and only if the tattoo is smaller than a quarter of that body part. A tattoo on the right forearm, the saluting arm, does not qualify. The respondents also distinguished the precedents relied upon by the petitioners as arising from direct recruitment, not promotion through LDCE, and pointed to a coordinate bench ruling in Gedela Chandra Sekhara Rao v. Union of India, where a similar plea by a serving force member seeking promotion was dismissed despite the tattoo's removability.

The Bench's Reasoning on Permissible Tattoos and Timing of Review

The Court agreed that the 2015 Guidelines do not impose a blanket prohibition on tattoos. It reproduced the relevant clause, which permits tattoos depicting religious symbols or names, located on the left forearm or dorsum of the hand, and sized under a quarter of that body part. But this permissive scope, the Bench held, cuts against the petitioners rather than for them: their tattoo sat on the right forearm, a location the guidelines expressly exclude. “The rules do not per se stipulate an embargo on having a tattoo,” the judgment noted, but they clearly fix where one may be worn.

On the timing of the review, the Bench found no fault with conducting it the day after the detailed medical examination. It pointed to paragraph 3 of Annexure A to the MHA's 2021 Office Memorandum, which contemplates the Review Medical Examination being held “in continuation” of the detailed examination, preferably the next day. The petitioners' argument that the short gap denied them a chance to fix the defect did not hold up against this explicit procedural design.

The Court also drew a sharp distinction between candidates entering service for the first time through direct recruitment and serving Inspectors seeking promotion through LDCE. Being already members of a disciplined force, the petitioners could not plead ignorance of the revised medical guidelines while applying for a higher post. The Bench found no reason to depart from the coordinate bench view in Gedela Chandra Sekhara Rao, where a similar promotion-related tattoo rejection had been upheld on comparable facts.

Why Subsequent Removal of the Tattoo Did Not Help

A central plank of the petitioners' case was that they had already undergone surgery to remove the tattoo and deserved a fresh chance at review. The Bench rejected this on a settled principle of judicial review in recruitment matters: eligibility must be judged as it stood on the relevant cut-off date, ordinarily the date of the medical examination or the application. The Court held it was not for it, exercising writ jurisdiction, to grant an additional opportunity that the recruitment process itself did not provide. Consequently, having the tattoo removed after being found unfit could not retrospectively cure the ineligibility that existed when the examination was conducted.

The judgment further noted that the correctness of the underlying MHA medical guidelines was never under challenge, and the existence of the tattoo at the relevant time was undisputed. On these facts, the petitioners were ineligible for consideration for promotion as Assistant Commandant through the LDCE, regardless of what they did afterward.

Non-Joinder of Selected Candidates

The Bench added a separate ground against granting relief. The respondents had informed the Court that all vacancies under the LDCE-2023 advertisement had already been filled. The petitioners had not impleaded any of the selected and appointed candidates. Allowing the petitions at this stage, the Court observed, would adversely affect those already-appointed officers who were never given a chance to be heard. On this basis too, the writ petitions were held to be bad for non-joinder of necessary parties.

Order

The Court held that the petitioners did not deserve the relief sought, having regard to the 2015 Ministry of Home Affairs guidelines as subsequently amended. Both writ petitions, W.P.(C) 13759/2024 and W.P.(C) 13766/2024, were dismissed, along with the connected applications. The Court directed that a photocopy of the judgment be kept in the connected matter file.