No right to appointment against select-list: Supreme Court

The general procedure for appointment to government jobs involves the preparation of select-list of candidates on the basis of the examination/inter-view prescribed for the employment. However  factors such as less number of vacancies than those who qualify such exams may lead to non-grant of appointment to all those who qualify and thus job may not be offered to a candidate even though he may have qualified the examination. What happens in such scenario? Can this be challenged in a court? The law seems to be against such successful examinees.

The Supreme Court in a recent decision noted with approval its earlier decisions to the effect that there is no right of a candidate to obtain employment only on the basis of his name figuring in the select-list, he having qualified in the examination. The Court declared that the position of law to this regard was settled that a right to the post fructified only upon the appointment having been granted and no claim to the job could be made only on the basis of select list unless the appointments were granted in an arbitrary and illegal manner.

The Bench observed in this regard as under;

11. Relying upon the decision of this Court in Union of India and Ors. v. Tarun K. Singh and Ors. (2003) 11 SCC 768, Mr. Malhotra all the same argued that the challenge to the order cancelling the test was legally untenable as no candidate had any legally enforceable right to any post until he was selected and an order of appointment issued in his favour. Cancellation of the selection process on the ground of malpractices could not, therefore, be subjected to judicial scrutiny before a Writ Court, at the instance of a candidate who had not even found a place in the select list. 

12. A Constitution Bench of this Court in Shankarsan Dash v. Union of India (1991) 3 SCC 47 had an occasion to examine whether a candidate seeking appointment to a civil post can be regarded to have acquired an indefeasible right to appointment again such post merely because his name appeared in the merit list of candidates for such post. Answering the question in the negative this Court observed: 

“It is not correct to say that if a number of vacancies are notified for appointment and adequate number of candidates are found fit, the successful candidates acquire an indefeasible right to be appointed which cannot be legitimately denied. Ordinarily the notification merely amounts to an invitation to qualified candidates to apply for recruitment and on their selection they do not acquire any right to the post. Unless the relevant recruitment rules so indicate, the State is under no legal duty to fill up all or any of the vacancies. However, it does not mean that the State has the licence of acting in an arbitrary manner. The decision not to fill up the vacancies has to be taken bona fide for appropriate reasons. And if the vacancies or any of them are filled up, the State is bound to respect the comparative merit of the candidates, as reflected at the recruitment test, and no discrimination can be permitted. This correct position has been consistently followed by this Court, and we do not find any discordant note in the decisions in the State of Haryana v. Subhash Chander Marwaha 1974 (3) SCC 220; Neelima Shangla (Miss) v. State of Haryana 1986(4) SCC 268 or Jitender Kumar v. State of Punjab 1985 (1) SCC 122.”

13. It is evident from the above that while no candidate acquires an indefeasible right to a post merely because he has appeared in the examination or even found a place in the select list, yet the State does not enjoy an unqualified prerogative to refuse an appointment in an arbitrary fashion or to disregard the merit of the candidates as reflected by the merit list prepared at the end of the selection process. The validity of the State’s decision not to make an appointment is thus a matter which is not beyond judicial review before a competent Writ court. If any such decision is indeed found to be arbitrary, appropriate directions can be issued in the matter.

14. To the same effect is the decision of this Court in Union Territory of Chandigarh v. Dilbagh Singh and Ors. (1993) 1 SCC 154, where again this Court reiterated that while a candidate who finds a place in the select list may have no vested right to be appointed to any post, in the absence of any specific rules entitling him to the same, he may still be aggrieved of his non-appointment if the authority concerned acts arbitrarily or in a malafide manner. That was also a case where selection process had been cancelled by the Chandigarh Administration upon receipt of complaints about the unfair and injudicious manner in which the select list of candidates for appointment as conductors in CTU was prepared by the Selection Board. An inquiry got conducted into the said complaint proved the allegations made in the complaint to be true. It was in that backdrop that action taken by the Chandigarh Administration was held to be neither discriminatory nor unjustified as the same was duly supported by valid reasons for cancelling what was described by this Court to be as a “dubious selection”.

15. Applying these principles to the case at hand there is no gainsaying that while the candidates who appeared in the typewriting test had no indefeasible or absolute right to seek an appointment, yet the same did not give a licence to the competent authority to cancel the examination and the result thereof in an arbitrary manner. The least which the candidates who were otherwise eligible for appointment and who had appeared in the examination that constituted a step in aid of a possible appointment in their favour, were entitled to is to ensure that the selection process was not allowed to be scuttled for malafide reasons or in an arbitrary manner. It is trite that Article 14 of the Constitution strikes at arbitrariness which is an anti thesis of the guarantee contained in Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution. Whether or not the cancellation of the typing test was arbitrary is a question which the Court shall have to examine once a challenge is mounted to any such action, no matter the candidates do not have an indefeasible right to claim an appointment against the advertised posts.

Have a look at the decision.