Once Advertisement Is Issued & Selection Criteria Prescribed , There Is Little Scope For Relaxing Norms By Selection Committee: SC
Once an advertisement has been issued and the selection criteria is prescribed, there is little scope for relaxing the norms, more so, by the Selection Committee unless and until it can be adequately demonstrated that it had the power to do so, the Supreme Court observed in a recent judgment.
The two-Judge Bench of Justice Hima Kohli and Justice Ahsanuddin Amanullah observed, "if the selection criteria is tinkered with in midstream, say for example by lowering the standards, a party can have a legitimate grievance that had it known that the criteria would be reduced subsequently, it too could have applied for the said post."
Advocate T.V. George represented the appellant while Senior Advocate Adish C. Aggarwala and Advocate Prem Sunder Jha represented the respondents.
Brief Facts -
An advertisement was issued by the respondent University, inviting applications for appointment of PTIs in four of its constituent colleges pursuant to which the appellant and the private respondents submitted their applications and they were found eligible. For conducting their interviews, the University constituted a five Members’ Selection Committee and thereafter, a merit list was prepared. The said merit list revealed that though all were interviewed by the Selection Committee for the posts available in the four colleges on the same day but at four different times, there was a great variation in the marks assigned to the appellant and the private respondents during the interview.
Thereafter, complaints were received by the Chancellor of University in respect of the selection process and a three Members’ Committee was appointed to inquire into the same. The appellant also lodged a protest as to the manner in which the interviews were conducted and the said Committee recommended cancellation of the appointments as a result of which the Chancellor directed the same. The private respondents approached the Division Bench of the High Court which set aside the judgment of Single Judge. Resultantly, the orders terminating the services of private respondents were quashed and set aside and aggrieved by this, the appellant was before the Apex Court.
The Supreme Court in view of the above facts noted, “… the learned Single Judge took pains to scrutinize the entire process adopted by the Selection Committee and returned a finding that the same was arbitrary, irrational and liable to be set aside. We are in concurrence with the said findings returned by the learned Single Judge.”
The Court said that the Single Judge rightly concluded that the entire process adopted by the Selection Committee was vitiated and could not withstand judicial scrutiny. Furthermore, it said that as per the part of settled service jurisprudence, merely by applying for a post pursuant to an advertisement, a candidate does not automatically acquire any vested right of selection and that he only acquires a right for being considered for selection strictly in accordance with the extant rules.
“It is further held that the respondent No.6 being ineligible for applying to the subject post, his application ought to have been rejected outright and therefore, his appointment order is hereby quashed. This leaves us with four posts of PTI’s in four constituent colleges under the respondent No.1 - University that are required to be filled up. For this purpose, it is deemed appropriate to direct the University to constitute a Selection Committee, which shall consider the candidature of the appellant and the respondents No.5, 7 and 8”, directed the Court.
The Court also referred to the case of Bedanga Talukdar v. Saifudaullah Khan and Others (2011) 12 SCC 85 in which the Court had highlighted the fact that any power of relaxation of the stipulated selection procedure ought to be mentioned in the advertisement.
Accordingly, the Apex Court allowed the appeals and issued certain directions.
Cause Title- Nutan Kumari v. B.R.A. Bihar University and Others (Neutral Citation: 2023 INSC 966)
