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Chairman Food Corporation of India v. Manoj Kumar Srivastava

Civil Appeal · 2021 INSC 489Decided 17 Sept 2021
Civil Appeal Nos. 5760-5764 of 2021
Justice Uday Umesh Lalit · Justice S. Ravindra Bhat · Justice Bela M. Trivedi

Background

The Food Corporation of India (FCI) advertised posts of Assistant General Manager (Legal) requiring specific legal experience. Respondent No. 1 cleared the written test and interview but was rejected because his application did not show the required experience details. He and other similarly placed candidates filed writ petitions before the Allahabad High Court. In August 2018, a Division Bench of the High Court passed an interim order directing FCI to give the candidates a fresh opportunity to submit evidence of their eligibility, and it was this interim order that FCI challenged before the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court declined to examine the underlying eligibility dispute on its merits, since the writ petitions were still pending before the High Court. It did observe, however, that the High Court's interim directions "were not called for." Since the Supreme Court had already stayed those directions earlier (at the notice stage), it continued that stay as the operative arrangement for as long as the matter remained pending in the High Court, and requested the High Court to dispose of the decade-old writ petitions within six months. The specific civil appeals before the Supreme Court (the matter identified by this diary number) were thereby finally disposed of, even though the underlying recruitment dispute itself remained to be decided by the High Court.

Lesson Learnt

When a party appeals only an interim order of a High Court, the Supreme Court's decision on that appeal can be final as far as that specific appeal is concerned while the main dispute still awaits a decision elsewhere: an SC order resolving an interim-order appeal is not the same as a final ruling on the underlying case.

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

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