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Vivek Kaisth & Anr. vs The State of Himachal Pradesh & Ors.

Civil Appeal · 2023 INSC 1007Decided 20 Nov 2023
Civil Appeal Nos. 6233-6234 of 2023
C.T. Ravikumar · Sudhanshu Dhulia

Background

In the 2013 recruitment for Civil Judge (Junior Division) in Himachal Pradesh, only 8 vacancies were advertised and an initial select list of 8 candidates was published. Afterwards, a committee including representatives of the State Government, the Public Service Commission and the High Court decided, based on a prior High Court ruling requiring larger select lists, to add four more names, including appellants Vivek Kaisth and Akansha Dogra, to posts that had actually arisen only after the advertisement was issued. Years later, another unsuccessful candidate challenged this in the High Court, which held the appointments illegal because they were made against vacancies that were never advertised, and quashed them; Vivek Kaisth and the other affected appointees then appealed to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court agreed with the High Court that the selection process was indeed legally flawed: the additional posts were "future" vacancies that had not existed when the advertisement was issued, so appointing candidates to them without a fresh advertisement violated recruitment law, and also noted that the High Court itself (on its administrative side) shared blame for not objecting during the process, contrary to its later stance. However, invoking its special equity powers under Article 142 of the Constitution and following the recent Constitution Bench ruling in Sivanandan C.T. v. High Court of Kerala, the Court declined to unseat the appellants: they had qualified through merit, showed no favouritism or wrongdoing, had already served roughly ten years as judges and been promoted, and removing them now would not serve the public interest. It therefore upheld the finding of illegality in law but set aside the actual quashing of their appointments, while dismissing the other connected appeals seeking to displace them.

Lesson Learnt

Even where a court finds that a public appointment process was technically flawed, it may still decline to unseat long-serving, blameless appointees using its equitable "complete justice" powers, particularly where years have passed, the individuals have gained real experience, and stripping them of office would harm the public interest more than the original procedural lapse did.

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

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