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Pawan Kumar Tiwary v. Jharkhand State Electricity Board (now Jharkhand Urja Vikas Nigam Limited)

Civil Appeal · 2025 INSC 1000Decided 19 Aug 2025
Special Leave Petition (Civil) No(s). 26860-26863 of 2023 (Civil Appeal Nos. arising therefrom)
Justice J.K. Maheshwari · Justice Aravind Kumar

Background

Three appellants, employed in Class IV posts at the Jharkhand State Electricity Board, were promoted to Class III posts (Routine Clerk and Lower Division Assistant) in 2009 through an internal selection process. After a Board-appointed Enquiry Committee found that internal appointments generally had exceeded sanctioned vacancies and violated qualification rules, the Board cancelled all such appointments, including the appellants', without individual notice or hearing. A Single Judge of the Jharkhand High Court partly restored the appellants' posts (as "fresh" appointments, without back wages or seniority), but a Division Bench reversed this entirely and upheld the cancellation, a decision the High Court's review bench also affirmed.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court found that the Enquiry Report itself, on closer scrutiny, showed the appellants' specific appointments were within the sanctioned strength (11 posts allowed for Routine Clerk against their appointment, and 5 for LDA), a fact the respondent's counsel candidly conceded during the hearing. The Court drew a sharp distinction between "irregular" appointments (procedural lapses, not fatal) and "illegal" ones (violating statutory rules or lacking a sanctioned post, void ab initio) and invoked the "doctrine of severability": that appointments untainted by fraud should not be swept away merely because other appointments in the same batch were problematic. Cancelling the appellants' appointments en masse, without individualised scrutiny or a hearing, violated natural justice. The Court declared the appellants' appointments legal and valid, restoring continuity of service and seniority from their original 2009 appointment date, though without back wages for the period they were out of service.

Lesson Learnt

When a group of appointments is cancelled for irregularities affecting only some of them, each individual's case must be examined on its own facts before their livelihood is taken away: administrative convenience is not a valid reason to punish employees for lapses they had no part in.

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

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