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Subhash Kumar v. The State of Bihar

Writ Petition (Civil) · 2020 INSC 644Decided 17 Nov 2020
Writ Petition (Civil) No. 798 of 2020
Justice L. Nageswara Rao · Justice Hemant Gupta · Justice Ajay Rastogi

Background

The petitioner, Subhash Kumar, had served for almost 15 years as a member of the Bihar Administrative Service after being selected through a 2001 competitive examination. A rival unsuccessful candidate, Baldeo Choudhary, had separately litigated for years claiming an error in evaluation of his answer script, eventually winning a Supreme Court order in 2019 directing that he be given appointment benefits from 2012 onward. The Bihar Public Service Commission, while implementing that 2019 order, went further and revised the entire original merit list, which resulted in Subhash Kumar being demoted from the Bihar Administrative Service to the Bihar Education Service, without ever being heard, even though he was not a party to Choudhary's case.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that its 2019 order was meant only to grant relief to Baldeo Choudhary personally, from the date of the High Court's 2012 judgment, and was never intended to authorise a wholesale revision of the 15-year-old select list affecting other officers like the petitioner who were never made parties or heard. Demoting someone after 15 years of service without a hearing violated the basic principle of natural justice and caused serious adverse civil consequences. The Court therefore quashed the State's order relegating the petitioner to the Bihar Education Service, allowing the writ petition in full.

Lesson Learnt

A court order granting relief to one person in their own case cannot be stretched by the authorities to take away another person's settled rights or employment status without giving that person a chance to be heard, doing so breaches natural justice regardless of how the authorities characterise it as "compliance" with the earlier order.

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

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