The Delhi High Court on Friday upheld a Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) order directing the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS) to appoint a candidate who had been excluded from consideration due to a technical error in her online form.
The division bench of Justice Navin Chawla and Justice Madhu Jain dismissed KVS’s petition and observed that the law “does not concern itself with trifles,” emphasizing that minor clerical mistakes should not derail a meritorious candidate’s career.
The ruling came in W.P.(C) 13384/2025 — Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan v. Smt. Geetanjali Yadav, a case that has drawn attention for its reflection of everyday digital-era pitfalls affecting government recruitments.
Background
The dispute traces back to Advertisement No. 16/2022, where KVS announced thousands of vacancies for Primary Teachers, including 1,731 seats under the OBC category.
Smt. Geetanjali Yadav, who belongs to the OBC category, applied for the post and scored 132.08 marks, comfortably above the OBC cut-off of 127.20 marks. Yet, to her dismay, her name was missing from the list of shortlisted candidates for the interview.
The issue, as later discovered, stemmed from an inadvertent error in the online form. The drop-down menu in KVS’s recruitment portal allowed only two qualification options — “D.El.Ed./JBT/BTC” or “Graduation + B.Ed.” Since Yadav held a Bachelor of Elementary Education (B.El.Ed.) degree, which is a valid qualification, she selected “Graduation + B.Ed.” to proceed with submission.
However, KVS treated her application as invalid after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Devesh Sharma v. Union of India (2023) that B.Ed. alone is not a valid qualification for primary school teachers. This led to her disqualification despite being otherwise eligible.
Court’s Observations
When the matter reached the Delhi High Court, the bench showed clear displeasure over the rigid stance taken by KVS.
“The record establishes that the respondent possessed the B.El.Ed. degree, which is explicitly recognized as a qualifying degree under the advertisement,” the judges noted.
They went on to criticize the software design flaw in KVS’s online application system, stating that it “provided only two choices in the qualification column.” The Court observed that once KVS recognized B.El.Ed. as valid, the responsibility was on the institution to design the form accordingly.
Justice Madhu Jain, authoring the judgment, observed, “The consequence of this design defect cannot be visited upon an otherwise eligible and meritorious candidate.”
Citing the Supreme Court’s decision in Vashist Narayan Kumar v. State of Bihar (2024), the bench remarked that trivial errors that play no part in the selection process should not be magnified. “The State was not justified in making a mountain out of this molehill,” the apex court had held — words the Delhi bench echoed with approval.
The bench also invoked the Latin maxim “de minimis non curat lex”, meaning the law does not concern itself with trifles, to drive home that bureaucratic technicalities cannot outweigh fairness and merit.
Upholding the CAT’s April 2025 order, the High Court directed KVS to issue an offer of appointment to Geetanjali Yadav for the post of Primary Teacher against the existing vacancies — or even by creating a supernumerary post if needed.
With this, the writ petition filed by KVS was dismissed, and the CAT’s directive for appointment stood affirmed.
Case Title: Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan v. Smt. Geetanjali Yadav
Case Number: W.P.(C) 13384/2025 & CM APPL. 54858/2025
Bench: Justice Navin Chawla and Justice Madhu Jain