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Akhilesh Prasad vs Jharkhand Public Service Commission and Ors.

Civil Appeal · 2022 INSC 474Decided 26 Apr 2022
Civil Appeal No. 3180 of 2022
Uday Umesh Lalit · S. Ravindra Bhat · Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha

Background

The appellant was selected in 1994 for a government post in the undivided State of Bihar under the Scheduled Tribe category, based on a caste certificate from an area that, after the Bihar Reorganisation Act, 2000, became part of the new State of Bihar (while the appellant's service itself was allocated to the newly created State of Jharkhand). Years later, when he sought benefit of the reserved-category promotion route (a limited departmental competitive examination) in Jharkhand, the State denied it on the ground that a 2008 government circular restricted such promotion-reservation benefits to SC/ST employees who were "permanent residents" of Jharkhand. The Jharkhand High Court's Single Judge ruled in the appellant's favour, but a Division Bench reversed that, prompting this appeal to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that Sections 73 and 74 of the Bihar Reorganisation Act protect the service conditions of employees allocated to a successor state, and that an employee's caste/tribe status recognised at the time of original appointment in undivided Bihar continues to attach to him even after his service is allocated to Jharkhand: the 2008 circular's "permanent resident" condition could not be used to strip him of reservation benefits in promotion. It restored the Single Judge's order in the appellant's favour and set aside the Division Bench's ruling. In a separate concurring opinion, Justice Bhat added that when a state is reorganised through no choice of the individual, the affected Scheduled Caste/Tribe member should not be left worse off as a result of a political decision, and Parliament has a constitutional obligation (flowing from Articles 14, 15(1), 341 and 342) to ensure consistent protection for such persons across reorganised states.

Lesson Learnt

When a state splits into two, an employee's caste/tribe-based service protections travel with them into whichever successor state their service is allocated to: a state cannot use a later "permanent residence" rule to retroactively deny reservation benefits that were valid at the time of original recruitment.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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