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Rajbir Surajbhan Singh v. The Chairman, Institute of Banking Personnel Selection, Mumbai

Civil Appeal · 2019 INSC 586Decided 29 Apr 2019
Civil Appeal No. 4455 of 2019
Justice L. Nageswara Rao · Justice M.R. Shah

Background

The appellant, an OBC candidate, was disqualified from a bank clerical recruitment process conducted by the Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS) because he failed to produce a caste certificate issued within the window specified in the advertisement. His writ petition challenging the disqualification was dismissed by the High Court as not maintainable, on the ground that IBPS was not a "State" amenable to writ jurisdiction.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court examined whether IBPS fell within "other authorities" under Article 12 or otherwise discharged a "public duty" making it amenable to writ jurisdiction under Article 226. It found IBPS was not created by statute, received no government funding, and was not under deep and pervasive government control merely because a few governing-body members came from public banks or the RBI. Relying on precedent (including Pradeep Kumar Biswas and Federal Bank v. Sagar Thomas), the Court held that conducting recruitment examinations for banks is a voluntary commercial activity, not a public duty, and dismissed the appeal, also noting the appellant hadn't participated in any subsequent recruitment rounds.

Lesson Learnt

Not every body connected to government-linked institutions, or performing functions useful to the public, is automatically subject to writ jurisdiction: courts look for actual statutory origin, government funding/control, or a genuine public duty before entertaining a writ petition against a private entity.

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

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