Appointments made in breach of mandatory provisions of law, such as Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India, can be challenged at any point of time, regardless of the length of service.

1. The appellants are non-teaching staff of a college which became a constituent college in 1981. Before the judgment in Braj Kishore Singh V/s. The State of Bihar, 1997 1 PLJR 509 was rendered there was a dispute as to whether sanction of the State Government is required in respect of each and every appointment. A Full Bench of this Court by rendering the said judgment has put to rest the said dispute. It has declared that once staffing pattern is approved and thereby posts are created appointments to such created posts can be made by the authority competent to appoint on those posts and no further sanction of the State Government in respect of such appointments is necessary.

2. In the first round of litigation, the appellants contended in CWJC No. 3420/ 1999 that they had been appointed by the competent authority on the posts so created on approval of staffing pattern. At the hearing of the said writ petition it was stated by the University that the cases of the employees of the said college are being processed and the same will be sent to the State Government for final decision. In view of such submissions, the Court while disposing of the said writ petition directed the University to forward a list of non-teaching employees of the said college to the State Government for necessary actions with a further direction upon the State Government to take a final decision in the matter.

3. In terms thereof the University forwarded to the State Government cases of thirty one non-teaching staff of the said college. The State Government upon consideration of cases of all the thirty one persons including those of the appellants held that the authorities of the college at the relevant time appointed those thirty one candidates without even inviting them to compete amongst them or with others. The State Government found as a fact that there had been breach of the provisions contained in Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India in the matter of appointing those thirty one persons. The State Government in its decision also indicated that while giving those appointments, the reservation policy had not been followed.

4. By filing CWJC No. 14535/2004, the appellants challenged the said decision of the Government. While doing so they did not contend that the college was not required to comply with the mandate contained in Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution. Although, according to the learned counsel for the appellants, the appellants were appointed before the college became a constituent college, still then it was not the case of the appellants in the writ petition, nor it is the case in this appeal that at the time of appointment of the appellants the College was not State within the meaning of Article 12 of the Constitution of India.

5. That being the position the conclusion would be that at the time when the appellants were appointed the college was State within the meaning of Article 12 of the Constitution of India, and, accordingly it was obliged to discharge its obligations imposed upon it by Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India.

6. There was no assertion in the writ petition nor there is any assertion in the present appeal that even through a limited competitive examination the appellants had been selected by a competent Selection Committee. There is, therefore, breach of mandate contained in Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India.

7. The appellants contend that they are in service for a long period of time and accordingly their services should not be interfered with as was opined by the Full Bench of this Court in the case reported above. In that case the Full Bench was of the view that the subject appointments, being not in dispute before them, as irregular appointments, such appointments cannot be interfered with after passage of a long period of time. When, however, the appointmentswith which we are concerned, were in breach of mandatory provisions of law and, therefore, per se illegal, the sam