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Alok Kumar Singh & Ors. v. State of U.P. & Ors.

Civil Appeal · 2018 INSC 1107Decided 27 Nov 2018
Civil Appeal No. 11370 of 2018
Justice Kurian Joseph · Justice Uday Umesh Lalit

Background

This matter arose from a large, long-running U.P. Police recruitment exercise (Sub-Inspector Civil Police/Platoon Commander PAC, roughly 4,010 sanctioned posts) that had spawned multiple rounds of litigation before the Allahabad High Court over issues like interpretation of Rule 15(j) on carrying forward vacancies, the number of candidates called for group discussion, and horizontal reservation. Alok Kumar Singh and others, whose writ petition (challenging the High Court's reading of Rule 15(j)) was dismissed by the High Court on 29.01.2016, approached the Supreme Court; their appeal was heard together with numerous connected civil appeals, writ petitions, and transferred cases raising overlapping issues from the same recruitment drive. The Supreme Court had earlier passed several interim directions over 2016-2018 on affidavits, eligibility cut-offs, and training of selected candidates.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court upheld the High Court's interpretation of Rule 15(j) against the appellants' challenge, agreeing that unfilled vacancies (due to candidates failing medical/character verification) must ordinarily be carried forward to future selections, not given on the appellants' terms. However, as a one-time exception given the unusual facts (multiple revisions of the final list and the number of posts involved), the Court directed that 607 vacant posts (from discontinued/disqualified candidates) and 226 unfilled posts (reserved for dependents of freedom fighters, for whom no eligible candidates existed), totalling 833 posts, be filled in the present selection itself, strictly in merit order among those who scored 50% or more, rather than carried forward. It segregated a separate, unrelated group of promotion-related SLPs for listing before a different bench. All appeals, writ petitions, and transferred cases (including this one) were disposed of in these terms, with all related contempt petitions closed and no order as to costs.

Lesson Learnt

Even where a court agrees with the general legal principle advanced by the government (here, that lapsed vacancies normally carry forward), it can still carve out a limited, one-time equitable exception when years of litigation and a specific, identifiable, small set of vacancies make rigid application unfair, but such relief based on merit is not limited only to the litigants who approached the court.

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

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