The main legal point established is the Court's power to mold relief to achieve justice and equity in service law, including the creation of supernumerary posts to accommodate wrongly appointed candidates without reversion.

Pradeep Nandrajog, J.

1. The three captioned writ petitions are a sequitur to a decision December 05, 2012, passed by a Division Bench of this Court in W.P.(C) No.6703/2012; and thus we begin our journey transposing ourselves back to the facts which led to the decision dated December 05, 2012.

2. It concerned appointment to the post of a Head Constable (GD) in the Central Reserved Police Force (CRPF) through a Limited Departmental Competitive Examination held in the year 2011.

3. On May 31, 2011, CRPF invited applications from eligible constables to be appointed as Head Constables through a Limited Departmental Competitive Examination. 335 vacancies for males and 2 for females were notified to be filled up. 90 posts of males and 1 post of female in the OBC category were shown as reserved, to be filled up from amongst members of Other Backward Communities.

4. The writ petitioners of W.P.(C) No.6703/2012 pointed out that appointment through a Limited Departmental Competitive Examination was a case of promotion and not direct recruitment and thus no post could be filled up through reservation in favour of OBC candidates.

5. Agreeing with the legal stand taken by the petitioner of W.P.(C) No.6703/2012, the writ petition was disposed of on December 05, 2012, holding that there could be no reservation for OBC candidates. A direction was issued to redraw the merit list after removing the benefit of reservation for OBC candidates.

6. Conscious of the fact that the decision dated December 05, 2012 may entail reversion of persons wrongly promoted, the Court left it to the discretion of the CRPF authorities not to revert anyone and create supernumerary posts; with further direction that if CRPF took said view, for purpose of seniority all such candidates who were promoted by giving benefit of reservation but would be accommodated on supernumerary posts being created and would be dove-tailed at the bottom of those who earned promotion on merits.

7. Writ petitioner of W.P.(C) No.2254/2014 Sunita Devi, earned a promotion in the said Limited Departmental Competitive Examination in the quota of a female OBC candidate. The writ petitioners of the other two writ petitions, W.P.(C) No.2258/2014 and W.P.(C) No.3070/2014, earned promotion on the strength of reservation for male OBC candidates.

8. In view of the decision dated December 05, 2012, all writ petitioners were given promotions in the year 2012 but sought to be reverted to the post of Head Constable two years later because their merit position did not entitle them to be promoted as Head Constable. They filed the three captioned petitions on the plea that the Cadre Controlling Ministry : the Ministry of Home Affairs has not accorded approval to the petitioners being retained as Head Constables, notwithstanding the Ministry agreeing in principle that it would be unjust to revert the petitioners, because the Ministry of Finance took the view that creating supernumerary posts would entail huge financial implications inasmuch as the supernumerary posts would need to be created/operated till 2025; further recognizing that its decision may not necessarily result in litigation, specifically observing that further litigation was only a possibility.

9. Pithily put, the case of the petitioners is that the decision taken by the Ministry of Finance overlooks that the supernumerary posts which would be required to be created would not operate till the year 2025, because in the years 2014 and onwards, vacancies to the post of Head Constable in the 10% LDCE quota would arise and the supernumerary posts created could be till the duration when vacancies would arise in the future and these futuristic vacancies could adjust the supernumerary posts created for the petitioners, by reducing the number of Head Constables to be appointed through the LDCE. For example, if 30 posts of Head Constables became vacant in the 10% quota to be filled up through LDCE in the year 2014, 30 supernumerary posts could b