Real judgements, distilled

Legal Case Shots

Court judgements broken down into the case type, how the decision played out, and the lesson worth remembering, with the full judgement available as a PDF.

Service & Administrative LawSupreme Court of India

N. Srinivas Goud v. The State of Telangana & Ors.

Civil Appeal · 2018 INSC 610Decided 13 Jul 2018
Civil Appeal No. 6653 of 2018
Justice Kurian Joseph · Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul

Background

The appellant was never appointed as a Multipurpose Health Assistant (Male) despite being selected through a 1999 recruitment process, because other pending litigation held up the appointments at the time. He had, however, been working on a contract basis in the same post since 2003. When his case reached the Supreme Court, it directed the State to report on whether vacancies now existed for this post in Nizamabad district.

Decision Breakdown

The State's counter-affidavit confirmed that while the originally notified 1999 vacancies had all been filled, the appellant had been working on contract since 2003 and that vacancies in the post were currently available. The Supreme Court held that, in the interest of complete justice and given these specific facts, the appellant should be adjusted against one of the presently available vacancies and formally appointed within two months, while expressly clarifying that this relief was granted on the peculiar facts of this case and should not be treated as a general precedent. The High Court's judgment was set aside and the appeal allowed.

Lesson Learnt

The Supreme Court can grant tailored relief to remedy a long-standing, fact-specific injustice (such as years of working on contract without regularisation after being wrongly denied an appointment) using its power to do "complete justice," without that relief becoming a binding precedent for other cases.

N. Srinivas Goud v. The State of Telangana & Ors. – Legal Case Shots | LegalAware