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Synopsis

Shortlisted airmen of the Indian Airforce have moved a petition before the Delhi High Court, seeking issuance of enrolment list and completion of previous recruitment as per a 2019 notification, without being affected by Centre's new Agnipath recruitment scheme for armed forces. 

A division bench of Justice Suresh Kumar Kait and Justice Saurabh Banerjee on Tuesday deferred the petition in view of a similar matter pending before the Supreme Court, which is coming up for hearing next week. 

The plea has been filed by Advocate Prashant Bhushan and has been moved by 20 candidates awaiting their enrolment as Airmen in the Indian Air Force.

The plea states that recruitment was to be done in three phases, which consisted of an online test, a physical fitness test, a group discussion, adaptability tests, and a medical examination pursuant to the notification. The petitioners applied for the posts and also qualified in all three phases. 

The plea further states that thereafter a provisional selection list containing the names of the petitioners was published on May 31, 2021 and it also contained the names of candidates, cut off marks and their position on the merit list. The said provisional list also stated that the enrolment list containing names of selected candidates would be published on July 10, 2021. However, the same was never published. 

After various successive statements being issued by the Government of India citing delay in recruitment due to COVID-19, no enrolment list was ever released. The plea claimed that no official notification has been issued by the authorities till date and that the official website where the petitioners would check their results for intake has also been removed by the Central Government altogether. 

The petition said that as per the statement of Air Marshal Suraj Kumar Jha, the new reform under the Agnipath Scheme was aimed at cutting the army's expenditure on salaries and pensions.

The petitioners argued that the decision to annul the entire selection process at such an advanced stage is arbitrary and capricious.

Agnipath Scheme  

The Agnipath scheme was announced on June 14, providing for recruitment of youths between the ages of 17 and a half and 21, on a temporary basis for a period of 4 years. 

The Government has offered 25% reservation for "Agniveers" (candidates recruited under the scheme) in the regular service recruitment of the armed forces. 

The scheme evoked a sharp response from the army aspirants, resulting in large-scale protests across the country. 

Several petitions have been filed in the Supreme Court seeking a direction to setup a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the damage to public properties including the Railways, during violent protests against the scheme.