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Tajvir Singh Sodhi & Ors. vs The State of Jammu and Kashmir & Ors. (Civil Appeal Nos. 2164-2172 of 2023, with connected appeals)

Civil Appeal · 2023 INSC 309Decided 28 Mar 2023
Civil Appeal Nos. 2164-2172 of 2023
K.M. Joseph · B.V. Nagarathna · Nagarathna

Background

In 2008-2009, the then State of Jammu and Kashmir advertised 72 posts of Drug Inspector and laid down a marking scheme giving candidates points for their educational qualifications plus a viva-voce (interview) worth 20 out of 100 marks. After applications were received but before the interviews, the recruitment board revised the marking scheme by a corrigendum, increasing the marks given for having a pharmacy/chemistry degree or higher qualifications (from 55 to 65 points, adding separate points for a Ph.D., etc.). Sixty-four candidates were eventually selected and appointed on 12 November 2009. Unsuccessful candidates challenged the process in the High Court, arguing the changed criteria and the viva-voce marks were unfair and arbitrary; a Single Judge and then a Division Bench of the Jammu & Kashmir High Court agreed and quashed the entire selection, even though the selected candidates had already been working as Drug Inspectors for over a decade by the time of the final High Court order. The selected candidates appealed to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that candidates who took part in the selection process without objecting to the revised marking criteria at the time, and only challenged it after they were declared unsuccessful, could not later claim the process was unfair: this is barred by the legal principle of waiver/acquiescence, unless there was proof of bad faith (mala fide) by the selection board, which was not shown here. The Court found the marks revision was a genuine, transparent attempt to reward higher qualifications and was not arbitrary. It also held that the High Court was wrong to cancel the entire selection merely because individual signed mark-sheets for each candidate could not later be produced: such a record-keeping gap, without more, does not prove the whole process was rigged, especially given the selected candidates had already served for over ten years. The Supreme Court set aside both the Single Judge's and the Division Bench's orders and restored the original 2009 selection and appointments.

Lesson Learnt

If you participate in a selection process without objecting to its rules or criteria at the time, you generally cannot challenge those same rules later simply because you did not succeed: objections to an unfair process must be raised promptly, not only after the result is known.

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

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