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Malik Mazhar Sultan & Anr. vs U.P. Public Service Commission Through Its Secretary

Civil Appeal · 2023 INSC 860Decided 26 Sept 2023
Civil Appeal No. 1867 of 2006
Dr. Dhananjaya Y. Chandrachud · J.B. Pardiwala · Manoj Misra

Background

This order arises from a long-running, decades-old Supreme Court proceeding (originally about timely filling of judicial vacancies across states) in which the State of Haryana filed an application seeking to hand over the entire recruitment process for 175 vacant posts of Junior Civil Judges to the Haryana Public Service Commission alone, and to modify an earlier 2009 Supreme Court order. Since 2007, recruitment to Haryana's judicial service had consistently been conducted through a broad-based Selection Committee including High Court judges nominated by the Chief Justice, the Advocate General, the Chief Secretary and the Public Service Commission: a practice formalised through Rule 7B of the state's judicial service rules, most recently in a December 2020 notification.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the State Government had not placed any cogent, objective material before it to justify departing from the fifteen-year-long consistent practice of a joint High Court-State-Commission Selection Committee, which by the State's own rule-making history (Rule 7B) reflected an understanding that the High Court's domain expertise should remain central to judicial recruitment. The State's arguments (that the Rules technically mandate the Public Service Commission alone, and that the Court's 2007 order required following each state's own rules) were rejected as a superficial reading that ignored the State's own consistent implementing practice since 2007. The application was dismissed, and the Court directed that recruitment for the pending 175 vacancies proceed within two weeks through the same four-member Committee (three High Court judges, the Chief Secretary, the Advocate General, and the Public Service Commission Chairperson), with the Commission continuing to provide logistical support.

Lesson Learnt

A state government cannot unilaterally reverse a long-settled, court-sanctioned institutional arrangement for judicial recruitment without objective evidence justifying the change: consistent past practice, especially one designed to safeguard judicial independence, carries real legal weight and courts will insist on genuine reasons, not just a technical reading of old rules, before permitting a departure from it.

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

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