JUDGMENT :

ALOK KUMAR SINHA, J.

The present Letters Patent Appeal has been preferred by the appellants assailing the judgment and order dated 09.07.2025 passed by the learned Single Judge in C.W.J.C. No. 10521 of 2022, whereby the learned Single Judge, having held that the case of the writ petitioner–respondent No. 1 is squarely covered by the judgments and orders dated 19.04.2023 passed in L.P.A. No. 650 of 2022 and analogous cases, dated 18.01.2024 passed in L.P.A. No. 727 of 2023, and dated 16.12.2024 passed in L.P.A. No. 261 of 2024, has been pleased to allow the writ petition with a direction to the appellants to consider the case of the said respondent No. 1 and, if found otherwise eligible, to issue necessary orders of appointment and posting on the post of Clerk in the Civil Courts of Bihar, in accordance with law, by extending similar treatment as granted to other similarly situated candidates, and to complete the entire exercise preferably within a period of eight weeks from the date of receipt/production of a copy of the said judgment; the appellants, being aggrieved thereby, have preferred the present appeal praying for setting aside the aforesaid impugned judgment and order as being unsustainable in law.

SUBMISSION OF THE APPELLANT

2. Learned counsel for the appellants submits that the impugned judgment and order dated 09.07.2025 passed in C.W.J.C. No. 10521 of 2022 suffers from manifest errors of law as well as of record and is liable to be set aside. It is contended that the learned Single Judge has failed to appreciate the settled principles governing delay and laches in service jurisprudence and has erroneously entertained the writ petition filed by respondent No. 1 long after the expiry of the validity of the select panel/wait list dated 26.09.2018, which admittedly came to an end on 26.09.2020 under Rule 7 of the Bihar Civil Court Staff (Class III and IV) Rules, 2009.

3. It is submitted that respondent No. 1 approached the Court only on 22.07.2022, i.e., after a delay of more than one and a half years from the expiry of the panel, without offering any plausible explanation for such delay. Learned counsel contends that such belated approach clearly attracts the principles of delay, laches and acquiescence, rendering the writ petition itself not maintainable at the threshold. In this regard, reliance is placed on the settled position of law that a candidate cannot seek appointment from an expired panel by approaching the Court belatedly.

4. Learned counsel further submits that the learned Single Judge has failed to consider that the benefit of the judgment dated 19.04.2023 passed in L.P.A. No. 650 of 2022 and analogous cases was confined to those writ petitioners who had approached the Court within the validity period of the panel. It is argued that the said judgment was clearly in personam and not in rem, and therefore could not have been extended to respondent No. 1, who admittedly did not approach the Court within the prescribed period. The attempt of the respondent to claim parity with those candidates, it is urged, is legally untenable. It is further submitted that the distinction between vigilant litigants and fence-sitters has been completely overlooked by the learned Single Judge. According to learned counsel, the writ petitioners in earlier cases had approached the Court in the years 2018–2019, during the subsistence of the panel, whereas respondent No. 1 remained silent and approached the Court only after the panel had lapsed. Such a person cannot be permitted to take advantage of the litigation pursued by others.

5. Learned counsel also submits that the learned Single Judge erred in holding that respondent No. 1 was not a fence-sitter merely because his writ petition was pending when subsequent developments took place. It is contended that the relevant consideration is the date of approaching the Court vis-à-vis the validity of the panel, and not the pendency of earlier litigations. The delay in approachin