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Municipal Corporation of Delhi v. Surender Singh & Ors.

Civil Appeal · 2019 INSC 852Decided 1 Aug 2019
Civil Appeal No. 5588 of 2010
Justice R. Banumathi · Justice A.S. Bopanna

Background

The Delhi Subordinate Services Selection Board advertised posts for Assistant Teacher (Primary) in Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) schools, with a discretion to fix minimum qualifying marks for selection. The two private respondents, Surender Singh and Rakesh Sharma, did not secure the minimum cut-off marks and so were not selected, even though some advertised posts remained vacant. The Delhi High Court's Division Bench, relying on a precedent about retired employees being granted relief if they had approached the court in time, directed MCD to appoint the two respondents anyway because vacancies existed; MCD appealed to the Supreme Court against that direction.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the High Court Division Bench had wrongly applied the precedent it relied upon (U.P. Jal Nigam), since that case concerned retirement-age benefits for employees who had timely asserted their rights, not a recruitment process where candidates had simply failed to meet the minimum merit cut-off. The Court noted that 40 candidates scored higher than Rakesh Sharma and 263 candidates scored higher than Surender Singh, meaning their selection despite lower merit would be unfair to better-performing candidates who had accepted the selection process's outcome. It held that showing "undue sympathy" to under-qualified candidates by lowering the bar would unjustly interfere with the employer's right to pick suitable candidates and would prejudice others who had legitimately qualified. The Division Bench's order directing their appointment was therefore set aside, and MCD's appeal was allowed.

Lesson Learnt

Courts will not direct an employer to appoint candidates who failed to meet a validly fixed minimum qualifying mark, merely because vacant posts exist, doing so would be unfair to other candidates who met or exceeded the cut-off and respected the selection process.

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

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