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Barun Kumar & Ors. vs The State of Jharkhand & Ors.

Civil Appeal · 2022 INSC 868Decided 25 Aug 2022
Civil Appeal No. 5812 of 2022
Ajay Rastogi · C.T. Ravikumar · Abhay S. Oka as the second judge

Background

The appellants were candidates who cleared the Jharkhand Public Service Commission's 6th Combined Civil Services Examination, 2016, were appointed, completed probation, and received regular postings. Years later, other candidates challenged the Commission's interpretation of the exam's qualifying-marks rule before the High Court, arguing that candidates needed to individually clear the minimum qualifying marks in each paper of the main examination, not just achieve the qualifying aggregate: a Single Judge accepted this view and cancelled the appointed candidates' appointments, and a Division Bench upheld the cancellation. The appointed candidates then appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing the advertisement and recruitment rules were genuinely ambiguous and the Commission's own long-followed interpretation (aggregate marks, not paper-wise) should not be overturned years after appointments were made.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the wording of the advertisement (Clauses 12 and 13) was genuinely ambiguous as between requiring minimum marks in each paper versus an aggregate qualifying score, and that Rule 16 of the applicable 1951 Recruitment Rules, when read as a whole, supported reading the proviso as applying to aggregate marks across the examination rather than paper-by-paper. Relying on its earlier ruling in N. Suresh Nathan v. Union of India, the Court reaffirmed that when a recruiting body's rules are ambiguous and it has consistently followed one reasonable interpretation over time, courts should not upset that settled practice, especially where doing so would unsettle candidates who have already been appointed, completed probation, and worked for years. The Court found it would be unjust to allow the "U-turn" the High Court's ruling would force, given the appointed candidates were not at fault and had already built settled careers on the strength of their selection. The appeals were allowed, and the High Court's judgment cancelling their appointments was quashed and set aside; a related transfer petition was also dismissed.

Lesson Learnt

When recruitment rules or an exam advertisement are genuinely ambiguous, and the recruiting authority has consistently followed one reasonable interpretation, courts will be reluctant to retroactively invalidate appointments made under that interpretation years later, especially where doing so would unfairly penalize candidates who bore no responsibility for the ambiguity and have since built their careers on the appointment.

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

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