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Shashi Bhushan Prasad Singh vs. The State of Bihar and Others

Not available · 2024 INSC 763Decided 4 Oct 2024
Not available
Justice Bela M. Trivedi · Justice Satish Chandra Sharma

Background

The Bihar Technical Service Commission advertised over 6,000 Junior Engineer vacancies in 2019, requiring a Diploma in Civil Engineering from an institution recognised by the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE), per Bihar Water Resources Department recruitment rules as amended in 2017. Several applicants holding diplomas from private universities approved by the University Grants Commission (UGC) but not by AICTE were declared ineligible; they challenged the eligibility rule before the Patna High Court, which ruled in their favour and quashed the selections of candidates recruited under the AICTE-only criterion. The successful candidates (appellants), whose selections were thereby jeopardised, appealed to the Supreme Court in this batch of connected appeals.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court examined the prolonged litigation history around this recruitment, noting the large number of posts that had remained vacant because of the dispute, which was hampering government functioning. Balancing the interests of both the originally selected candidates and the wrongly-excluded UGC-diploma holders, the Court declined to simply strike down the earlier selections but instead directed a practical, forward-looking remedy: the Bihar Technical Service Commission should prepare a "Revised Select List" that both honours an existing High Court order in a related case and includes, as far as possible, meritorious candidates who were wrongly excluded solely because their institution lacked AICTE (as opposed to UGC) recognition. It fixed a three-month deadline for the Commission to prepare this list and a further 30 days for the State to act on it.

Lesson Learnt

In long-running recruitment disputes where a technical eligibility criterion (like requiring one specific regulator's approval over another equally valid one) has unfairly excluded qualified candidates, courts will look for a balanced, practical solution, such as a revised merit list that protects existing appointees while including wrongly excluded candidates, rather than simply cancelling an entire selection process years after it happened.

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

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