After invalidating the Jharkhand High Court’s full court resolution that set a 50% aggregate mark requirement for district judge selection, the Supreme Court declared that increasing the aggregate marks after the exam was completed was “unjust and impermissible”. Setting cut-off marks has been given to the High Court, but it must be done before the start of an exam, according to a bench of Justices Aniruddha Bose and Sanjay Kumar.
The High Court administration cannot use the rule to make a general decision to deviate from the rules specified selection criteria, the court further stated. The bench stated that although the “no change in the rule midway” principle has become an essential component of the service legal precedent, the court would continue to follow it.
In order to fill the current announced vacancies, the High Court should recommend candidates who have been selected based on merit or other criteria. This recommendation should be made without following the full court resolution, which mandates that each candidate receive 50% of the possible points. The court granted the writ petitions filed by Sushil Kumar Pandey and others.
In the case in question, the High Court on March 23, 2023, adopted a resolution by the entire court establishing a 50 per cent aggregate score (combined marks from the main exam and viva voce) as the minimum requirement for recommendation to the 22 district judge positions in the recruitment process that was started in 2022.
Applying a higher aggregate mark is not prohibited by the rules or regulations, according to the High Court. Additionally, it stated that simply being on the selection list did not grant a candidate any legal claim to be appointed to the position in question. The bench did note that it was “impermissible” for the High Court administration to have attempted to depart from the statutory guidelines governing the selection process itself.
“If precluding a candidate from appointment is in violation of the recruitment rules without there being a finding on such candidate’s unsuitability, such an action would fail the Article 14 test and shall be held to be arbitrary,” the court stated. Better candidates should be found, which is the rationale behind the full court resolution. However, the court made clear that this is not the same as finding a candidate who was rejected from consideration for an appointment to be unfit.
by Swapnil Angel Samad