Maharashtra CET Cell invites applications for Assistant Legal Officer and Special Work Officer posts

The State Common Entrance Test Cell, Maharashtra, has invited applications for two contractual posts at its Mumbai office: one Assistant Legal Officer and one Special Work Officer. The public notice is dated 11/09/2026. The file number printed on the letterhead ends 2233/2026 and sits in the establishment series for a retired special-work officer and an assistant legal officer. The five-page Marathi PDF carries the Word title for an updated advertisement. CreationDate on the local archive copy is Fri Sep 11 07:44:56 2026 UTC, which is 13:14 IST the same afternoon. The portal upload path is Notice_OSD_Asst_legal_officer-1.pdf on cetcell.mahacet.org.

This file is a staffing notice. It is not the same-day architecture admission circular TED-1226/C.R.07/CET/2026/2239 that moved the B.Arch and M.Arch cutoff from 15 September 2026 to 30 September 2026. It is also not the already-live 07.09.2026 technical-education cutoff that fixed 14 September 2026 for the wider CAP calendar. Candidates looking for an admission date will not find one here. Applicants looking for a contract role in the Cell's legal and special-work benches will.

The notice says the Cell needs the two posts for office work on a contract basis, on government-prescribed terms, for specified duties. Both appointments, if made, will be purely contractual on a lump-sum honorarium and, at the start, only for eleven months. Selected persons will not be treated as government employees. The Cell retains the right to stay, postpone or cancel the selection process at any stage.

Who can apply and what each contract post pays

The Assistant Legal Officer post is one vacancy at Rs 45,000 a month. The candidate must hold an LLB degree or an LLM postgraduate degree from a recognised university and must be an enrolled advocate. The notice also asks for working knowledge of the kinds of law the Cell handles, adequate command of Marathi, Hindi and English, computer-work experience, and a maximum age of 45 years at the time of appointment. The experience bar is five years of handling court cases in a government, semi-government or private establishment, or five years of advocate practice in any court in Maharashtra.

Duties listed for the legal post include handling court matters with competence, advising the Cell on legal files, chasing pending cases in which the Cell is a respondent, drafting affidavits for competent-authority approval and filing them in time, remaining present for hearings, studying adverse court orders and taking appeal steps where needed, tracking cause-list dates, and assisting the legal officer. During the contract the selected legal officer cannot take up private legal practice or related private work without the appointing authority's written permission. If permission is refused and private practice continues in a way that harms official work, the appointment can be cancelled and legal action can follow.

The Special Work Officer post is one vacancy. Pay follows General Administration Department government resolution CBE 1525 / C.R.37 / establishment (desk 13) dated 10 June 2025. Applicants must be retired Group-A gazetted officers from government service. Age on the date of the advertisement must not exceed 65 years. The officer should have retired from a post not below Assistant Director or equivalent, should have no pending departmental enquiry or judicial proceeding at retirement, and should have adequate computer and information-technology knowledge. Preference is printed for officers who already know professional-course entrance examinations and the admission process.

Duties listed for the special-work post include a minimum ten years of work as a lecturer, associate professor or assistant professor; knowledge of CET and CAP for professional programmes; MS Office, scanning, printing, basic digital and portal operations, the CET portal and AI tools; accurate analysis of sensitive proposals and files for senior approval; time-bound disposal of citizen complaints through the government system; study of Maharashtra government resolutions on entrance examinations and admission rules, with amendment drafts sent to the concerned directorate; court-file notes for counsel; disposal of sudden cases; and discussion with the Commissioner on college and student difficulties.

How to apply and the Mumbai-residence condition

Willing and eligible candidates must send the application in the prescribed form, with a bio-data, by email to est.cetcell@gmail.com on or before 23 September 2026. Applications received after that date will not be processed, and no correspondence on the subject will be entertained. After scrutiny the Cell will call candidates for interview. No travelling allowance is payable. The final selection authority rests with the Maharashtra State Common Entrance Test Cell.

Service can be ended with one month's prior notice if work is found unsatisfactory. Resignation will not be accepted except in exceptional circumstances and with the competent authority's approval. A selected person who wants to leave must give at least one month's written notice to the Cell. Those conditions sit with the eleven-month opening term and the statement that the appointees will not be counted as government servants.

An important note at the foot of the notice explains why the Cell is insisting on Mumbai residence. The office runs multiple common entrance tests and the centralised admission process. The work is described as highly sensitive. Court files reach the office daily and must be handled as confidential. Staff may have to work late into the night and still report on time the next morning. Because entrance-test and admission work is treated as continuous, including 24 x 7 cover, the applicant must actually reside in Mumbai. Contact numbers printed for more information are 022-22016153 / 57 / 59. The notice is signed by Dilip Sardesai, IAS, Commissioner, Maharashtra State Common Entrance Test Cell, Mumbai. Place: Mumbai.

Public notice dated 11/09/2026, file number ending 2233/2026, posted as Notice_OSD_Asst_legal_officer-1.pdf, is the five-page CET Cell recruitment file for one Assistant Legal Officer at Rs 45,000 a month and one Special Work Officer on contract, with applications due by 23 September 2026 at est.cetcell@gmail.com. That staffing clock, not the same-day B.Arch and M.Arch cutoff circular, is the story.