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Nirbhay Kumar & Ors. v. State of Bihar & Ors.

Writ Petition (Civil) · 2020 INSC 423Decided 11 Jun 2020
Writ Petition (Civil) No. 227 of 2019
Justice Ashok Bhushan · Justice M.R. Shah · Justice V. Ramasubramanian

Background

A long-running dispute arose out of a 2004 Bihar Police Sub-Inspector recruitment drive that saw repeated rounds of litigation, re-examinations, and court-ordered selection processes over more than a decade. A group of candidates who had either skipped or failed the physical efficiency test for a later 299-post selection round filed writ petitions, demanding appointment on par with 133 other candidates who had been exempted from re-taking the physical test and directly appointed by an earlier Supreme Court order.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court dismissed all the writ petitions. It noted that the exemption given to the 133 candidates had been granted under the Court's special constitutional power (Article 142) specifically to bring closure to very old litigation, and that very order had expressly stated it must not be treated as a precedent for anyone else. The petitioners, by contrast, had either not appeared for the physical test at all or had appeared and failed it, so they could not claim equal treatment with a legally distinguishable group. The Court also noted an earlier order had already warned these candidates that rejection of their representations would not entitle them to further litigation.

Lesson Learnt

A one-off relief that a court grants to a specific small group "in the interest of justice," and expressly declares will not be a precedent, cannot later be claimed by others as a matter of equal right, especially when those others did not actually clear the same eligibility requirements.

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

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