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Sunil Rathee v. State of Haryana

Transfer Petition (Civil) · 2020 INSC 463Decided 23 Jul 2020
Transfer Petition (Civil) No. 2592 of 2019
Justice Aniruddha Bose

Background

Job applicants from the general category, competing for "shift attendant" posts advertised by the Haryana Staff Selection Commission, challenged a 2013 Haryana government notification giving 10% reservation to economically backward persons within the general category, arguing it pushed total reservation beyond the 50% ceiling recognized by the Supreme Court's earlier rulings. Rather than fully litigate this before the Punjab and Haryana High Court, where their writ petition was pending, they asked the Supreme Court to transfer that writ petition to itself, since the Supreme Court was already hearing a similar reservation dispute on appeal from Gujarat involving essentially the same legal question.

Decision Breakdown

The Court explained that transferring a case under Article 139A of the Constitution requires that the pending Supreme Court case involve substantially the same legal questions as the High Court case, and that those questions be of general public importance. Finding that the Haryana reservation notification and the Gujarat reservation ordinance both raised essentially the same question, whether such economically-backward-category reservations breach the 50% ceiling recognized in Indra Sawhney, the Court held both conditions were satisfied and ordered the Punjab and Haryana High Court's writ petition withdrawn to the Supreme Court, to be heard alongside the pending Gujarat appeal. Applications by other job candidates seeking to join the proceedings were dismissed, as such impleadment was not appropriate in a transfer petition itself.

Lesson Learnt

When the same important legal question is pending in both a High Court and the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court can pull the High Court case up to itself under Article 139A so both are decided together and consistently, but this transfer mechanism decides only where the case will be heard, not who wins on the underlying merits.

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

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