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Lance Nayak PNO No. 980510777 Raj Bahadur & Ors. v. The State of Uttar Pradesh & Ors.

Civil Appeal · 2019 INSC 660Decided 9 May 2019
Civil Appeal No. 4837 of 2019
Justice Uday Umesh Lalit · Justice Indu Malhotra

Background

The appellants, Scheduled Caste constables/head constables in the UP Police, appeared in a limited departmental examination for promotion to Sub-Inspector, which required a minimum of 50% marks in each of four separate subjects. After an earlier Supreme Court order corrected 18 erroneously-set questions and a fresh select list was issued, the appellants still fell short of the 50% threshold in two specific subjects (Numerical/Mental Ability and Mental Aptitude/Reasoning), and argued these two subjects should be treated as one combined "paper" so their aggregate score would qualify them.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court rejected the argument that two subjects carrying marks separately should be clubbed into one paper for the 50% cut-off, holding that the Rules clearly delineated four distinct subjects and required the minimum to be met "in each subject": the Rules' express language did not permit the appellants' proposed interpretation. The Court also rejected a separate plea for relaxed qualifying marks for reserved-category candidates, noting that while the State could have prescribed a relaxed criterion for SC/ST candidates, it had not done so, and the Court could not create one. All the connected appeals (and two related transferred writ petitions wrongly clubbed with an unrelated direct-recruitment case) were accordingly dismissed, with the Court also correcting its own earlier order to properly deal with the mis-clubbed transferred cases.

Lesson Learnt

When eligibility rules specify a minimum qualifying mark "in each subject," courts will enforce that language strictly and will not permit candidates to combine or average scores across subjects to meet the threshold, and courts cannot grant relaxation in such merit-based criteria for reserved categories unless the government itself has framed such a relaxation.

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

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