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Govt. of Bihar and Ors. Etc. Etc. v. Dayanand Singh Etc. Etc.

Civil Appeal · Neutral citation not assigned (Civil Appeal Nos. 9921-9923 of 2016)Decided 29 Sept 2016
Civil Appeal Nos. 9921-9923 of 2016
Justice J. Chelameswar · Justice Abhay Manohar Sapre

Background

The State of Bihar had in 2009 amended its judicial service recruitment rules to extend caste-based reservation (for SC/ST/OBC candidates) to recruitment of judicial officers, but the Patna High Court quashed these rule amendments on the ground that the State had not genuinely "consulted" the High Court as constitutionally required before making them. The State of Bihar and various affected candidates appealed to the Supreme Court, against a backdrop of a quarter-century-long dispute over reservation in Bihar's judicial services (going back to a 1991 law and an earlier Supreme Court ruling, State of Bihar v. Bal Mukund Sah) and hundreds of judicial-service vacancies that had piled up during the litigation.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court agreed with the High Court that the "consultation" the State claimed to have carried out with the High Court before amending the rules fell well short of the genuine consultation required under Articles 233 and 234, and accordingly confirmed that the rules were rightly struck down as illegal. The Court then laid out a structured path forward: the State may restart the process by sharing its own data and assessment on the need for reservation in judicial services, the High Court must respond with its considered opinion, and if the two disagree the Government must record reasons before proceeding, with the whole exercise to be completed by 1 January 2017 and all resulting vacancies filled by 30 June 2017. As a practical remedy for roughly 20-23 candidates who would have qualified for reserved seats under the invalidated rule, the Court directed they be appointed against vacancies arising after the 2012 recruitment round, ranked behind candidates selected under the valid (non-reserved) process. Connected special leave petitions were disposed of as having become infructuous, and a separate petition by an advocate seeking expunction of adverse remarks made against him was left for him to pursue before the High Court itself.

Lesson Learnt

A state government cannot introduce reservation in judicial service recruitment unilaterally: genuine, substantive consultation with the High Court (not just an exchange of letters) is a constitutional precondition, and even when a policy is struck down for this procedural failure, courts can still craft equitable relief for individuals caught in the resulting limbo rather than leaving them with nothing.

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

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