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SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
L. NAGESWARA RAO, SANJIV KHANNA, JJ.
THE STATE OF RAJASTHAN – APPELLANT(S)
VERSUS
NEMI CHAND MAHELA AND OTHERS – RESPONDENT(S)
CIVIL APPEAL NO. 3873 OF 2010 WITH CIVIL APPEAL NO. 4491 OF 2019 (ARISING OUT OF SPECIAL LEAVE PETITION (CIVIL) NO. 4562 OF 2012)
Decided On : 30-04-2019
(B) Service Law – Appointment – Post of Primary School Teachers of Zila Parishad – Award of bonus marks to selected candidates struck down by Court – Apex Court had recognized the need to balance competing claims by invoking doctrine of prospective overruling, thereby, protecting appointments made on or before November 17, 1999 and confining relief only to writ petitioners who had moved High Court before November 18, 1999 – A number of impleadment applications have been filed by aspirants anxiously waiting and hoping of favourable outcome in foreclosed and covered litigation – They cannot succeed and these applications are dismissed – Candidates who had not filed writ petitions on or before November 17, 1999 would not be entitled to appointment upon recalculation of marks by exclusion of bonus marks from marks of selected candidates – Such direction would not apply to individual cases where principle of res judicata would apply. (Paras 10, 11 and 13)
(C) Constitution of India – Article 141 – Doctrine of Prospective Overruling – There was need to balance competing claims. (Para 6)
Facts of Case:
Award of bonus marks to candidates seeking appointment to post of Primary School Teachers in Zila Parishad of various districts in State of Rajasthan during the year 1998-99 was struck down and declared unconstitutional by a Full Bench of Rajasthan High Court which ultimately gave rise to present civil appeal.
Findings of Court:
Candidates who had not filed writ petitions on or before November 17, 1999 would not be entitled to appointment upon recalculation of marks by exclusion of bonus marks from marks of selected candidates. The aforesaid direction would not apply to individual cases where principle of res judicata would apply, i.e. wherein decision of Single Judge or Division Bench has become final since it was not challenged before Division Bench or before this Court. All other pending writ petitions and appeals, before High Court, would be disposed of and decided on the basis of decisions in Kailash Chandra Sharma’s, Manmohan Sharma’s cases and present matter, subject to condonation of delay, when justified and satisfactorily explained.
Result : Appeals disposed of.
JUDGMENT
Sanjiv Khanna, J.
Leave granted in Special Leave Petition (Civil) No. 4562 of 2012.
2. Predicament of candidates consequent to conflicting opinions in different decisions of the High Court on true and correct interpretation of principle of prospective overruling as directed in Kailash Chand Sharma vs. State of Rajasthan and Ors., (2002) 6 SCC 562 is the cause of this agonising and festering litigation since 1999. This “scarecrow” of a litigation, to use the words of Charles Dickens, “in course of time, [has] become so complicated that no man alive knows what it means.”
3. Award of bonus marks to candidates seeking appointment to the post of Primary School Teachers in Zila Parishad of various districts in the State of Rajasthan during the year 1998-99 was struck down and declared unconstitutional by a Full Bench of the Rajasthan High Court vide judgment dated November 18, 1999 in Kailash Chand Sharma v. State of Rajasthan in W.P.(C) No. 3928 of 1998, for the reason that any kind of weightage and advantage in public employment in a State service is not permissible on the ground of place of birth, residence or on the ground of being a resident of urban or rural area. The Full Bench in Kailash Chand Sharma’s case (supra) had followed an earlier Full Bench judgment in Deepak Kumar Suthar and Another v. State of Rajasthan and Others, (1999) 2 Rajasthan Law Reporter 692 wherein similar stipulations for grant of bonus marks in selection of Grade II and Grade III teachers in the state cadre were struck down as unconstitutional. However, in Deepak Kumar Suthar’s case (supra), no consequential and substantive relief was granted to the writ petitioners therein as first, they did not have a chance of selection on merits even if award of bonus marks to successful candidates was disregarded and secondly, the candidates so selected had not been impleaded as parties. Accordingly, the Full Bench in Deepak Kumar Suthar’s case (supra), in the concluding paragraph, had given the following directions:
“44. Instead of sending the matter to the appropriate bench, we think it proper to dispose of this petition with a direction that no relief can be granted to the petitioners as they could not succeed to get the place in the merit list even by getting 10 bonus marks being residents of urban area, for which they are certainly not entitled. More so, the petitioners have not impleaded any person from the select list, not even the last selected candidate. Thus, no relief can be granted to them in spite of the fact that the appointments made in conformity of the impugned Circular have not been in consonance with law. However, we clarify that any appointment made earlier shall not be affected by this judgment and it would have prospective application.”
4. These directions in Deepak Kumar Suthar’s case (supra) were followed by the Full Bench in Kailash Chand Sharma’s case (supra) and the batch of writ petitions were disposed of.
5. After the decision of the Full Bench in Kailash Chand Sharma’s case (supra), a large number of writ petitions including one by Naval Kishore were filed before the Rajasthan High Court. Some of them, notwithstanding the operative directions given by the Full Bench in Kailash Chand Sharma’s case (supra), were disposed of with a direction to the authorities to prepare and draw up a fresh merit list of candidates appointed on or after October 21, 1999 without the bonus marks. For convenience we would refer to these cases as Naval Kishore’s case. Naval Kishore’s case (supra) was decided on 30th July, 2002.
6. The decision of the Full Bench in Kailash Chand Sharma’s case (supra) and some of the judgments directing preparation of fresh merit list without bonus marks (but not in all cases where such directions were issued) became subject matter of challenge in Special Leave Petitions which were granted and decided vide the judgment reported as Kailash Chand Sharma’s case (supra) referred to by us in paragraph 2 above. Affirming th
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