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The State of Tamil Nadu v. G. Hemalathaa

Civil Appeal · 2019 INSC 975Decided 28 Aug 2019
Civil Appeal No. 6669 of 2019
Justice L. Nageswara Rao · Justice Hemant Gupta

Background

The respondent, a practicing advocate, applied for selection to the Tamil Nadu State Judicial Service through a Public Service Commission examination. She did not appear in the list of successful candidates, and on inquiry learned her Law Paper-1 answer sheet had been invalidated for violating the Commission's instructions. The Madras High Court, after examining her answer sheet and finding she had underlined portions in pencil (violating a rule barring use of pencils for any purpose), nonetheless granted her relief on humanitarian/sympathetic grounds, treating the violation as inadvertent. The State appealed to the Supreme Court against this direction.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the Commission's examination instructions have the force of law and must be strictly complied with, and that a High Court exercising writ jurisdiction under Article 226 cannot relax or modify such mandatory instructions, even on sympathetic grounds. It held that despite the High Court itself finding a clear violation of the "no pencil" rule, granting relief anyway, on the reasoning that the mistake was inadvertent, effectively rewrote a binding rule and would set a problematic precedent for other disqualified candidates. Citing the principle that "hard cases make bad law," the Court set aside the High Court's judgment and allowed the State's appeal, restoring the invalidation of her answer sheet.

Lesson Learnt

Candidates in competitive public examinations must strictly follow all examination instructions (such as prohibitions on specific writing materials), because courts will not relax binding, mandatory rules even for a sympathetic or inadvertent violation, since doing so risks unfairness to other candidates and undermines the integrity of the selection process.

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

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