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Cdr. Amit Kumar Sharma & Ors. vs. Union of India & Ors.

Civil Appeal · 2022 INSC 1124Decided 20 Oct 2022
Civil Appeal Nos. 841-843 of 2022
Dhananjaya Y. Chandrachud · Hima Kohli

Background

Following an earlier Supreme Court ruling (Union of India v. Lt. Cdr. Annie Nagaraj) directing that eligible women Short Service Commission officers in the Navy be considered for Permanent Commission, the Naval authorities carried out a fresh selection exercise. Several officers who were denied Permanent Commission challenged that exercise before the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT), which dismissed their applications. Crucially, the material and data underlying the selection process was shown to the AFT only in a "sealed cover" and was never disclosed to the officers challenging their non-selection.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that using a sealed-cover procedure to decide the fairness of the selection process, without disclosing the underlying material to the affected officers, caused them substantial prejudice and breached the principles of natural justice, since they never got a chance to raise objections to how the exercise was actually carried out. The Court declined the appellants' request that it decide the merits itself, holding that fact-finding on vacancies, utilisation of vacancies and fairness of the selection process is primarily the AFT's job under the Armed Forces Tribunal Act, 2007. It therefore set aside the AFT's judgment and remanded all the matters back to the AFT for fresh adjudication with proper disclosure, directing the AFT to dispose of the cases expeditiously (preferably by end of February 2023), while protecting the officers currently benefiting from interim orders in the interim.

Lesson Learnt

A "sealed cover" procedure that hides the material basis of an administrative decision from the person it affects, even when shown to a tribunal, can itself amount to a breach of natural justice: a citizen is entitled to know and respond to the case/data being used against them, not just have a court or tribunal privately review it.

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

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