The Allahabad High Court (Lucknow Bench) has permitted a candidate for the Assistant Prosecution Officer (APO)-2025 recruitment examination to provisionally appear in the Mains examination after her candidature was rejected by the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (UPPSC) on the ground that she had failed to submit the hard copy of her online application form.
Justice Amitabh Kumar Rai took up the writ petition on an urgent basis, noting that the Mains examination was scheduled to commence the same day at 9:00 a.m. The petitioner contended that after qualifying the preliminary examination, she had duly submitted her online application for the Mains and dispatched the printed copy of the application form along with all self-attested academic documents by Speed Post on 17 May 2026, which, according to her, was received by the Commission within the prescribed time. Despite this, the Commission rejected her candidature by an order dated 11 June 2026, citing non-submission of the hard copy.
The petitioner relied on an earlier order of the High Court passed on 25 June 2026 in Lovely v. State of U.P. Writ-A No. 9336 of 2026, where, in similar circumstances, the Court had permitted a candidate to provisionally appear in the Mains examination. The Court noted that the UPPSC did not dispute that the petitioner’s case stood on the same footing.
During the hearing, counsel for the UPPSC informed the Court that necessary arrangements could be made to allow the petitioner to appear provisionally in the examination, as the Commission was already aware of the filing and urgent listing of the petition. Taking note of the admitted position that the petitioner had submitted the online application and that her candidature had been rejected solely on the alleged ground of non-submission of the hard copy, the Court directed that she be permitted to appear in the Mains examination provisionally, subject to further orders in the writ petition.
The High Court directed the respondents to file a counter affidavit within three weeks, followed by a rejoinder, and listed the matter for 29 July 2026. It also granted liberty to the petitioner to challenge the rejection order dated 11 June 2026 by filing an appropriate amendment application. Considering the urgency, the Court further directed counsel for the UPPSC to immediately inform the Secretary of the Commission to ensure that the petitioner was allowed to appear at any examination centre in Lucknow.
