When Service Rules Are Silent, Advertisement's 'Non-Cumulative' Age Relaxation Clause Is Valid And Binding: Rajasthan High Court - 2025-09-18

When Service Rules Are Silent, Advertisement's 'Non-Cumulative' Age Relaxation Clause Prevails, Rules Rajasthan High Court

JODHPUR: In a significant ruling on service law, the Rajasthan High Court has held that if service rules are silent on the nature of age relaxations, a specific clause in a recruitment advertisement stipulating that such benefits are non-cumulative will be valid and binding on all applicants. A Division Bench of Dr. Justice Pushpendra Singh Bhati and Justice Sandeep Taneja overturned a Single Judge's order, thereby upholding the rejection of candidates who claimed eligibility by clubbing multiple age concessions.

The court established a clear legal hierarchy: "If the Rule is speaking, the Rule will prevail; if silent, the advertisement will prevail." This decision clarifies the legal position for thousands of government job aspirants relying on various age relaxation provisions.

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Background of the Case

The dispute arose from a 2023 recruitment drive for 249 Unani Medical Officer posts by the Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan Rajasthan Ayurved University. Several aspirants, who were serving as temporary employees under the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) and also belonged to reserved categories like OBC, were disqualified for being over the age limit.

These candidates challenged their disqualification, arguing they were entitled to cumulative age relaxation. They claimed they should be able to combine the relaxation for their contractual service, their OBC category status, and a further concession for the delay in holding the recruitment, as provided under different clauses of the Rajasthan Ayurvedic, Unani, Homoeopathy and Naturopathy Service Rules, 1973 .

A Single Judge bench had earlier ruled in their favour, holding that the rules did not prohibit cumulative benefits and therefore, the restrictive clause in the advertisement was invalid. The State of Rajasthan subsequently appealed this decision.

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Arguments Before the Division Bench

For the State (Appellants):

* The counsel, Mr. Piyush Bhandari, argued that the advertisement was issued strictly in accordance with the service rules, which intended for each relaxation category (e.g., for contractual employees, reserved categories, women) to operate independently.

* He contended that the candidates, having participated in the selection process under the advertised terms, were estopped from challenging those very terms after being unsuccessful.

* Reliance was placed on previous High Court judgments in Dhuleshwar Ghogra and Alsa Ram Meghwal , which had disallowed the clubbing of age relaxations.

* It was submitted that allowing cumulative benefits would "open the floodgates" and defeat the purpose of prescribing a maximum age limit for public service.

For the Candidates (Respondents):

* Counsel for the respondents, including Mr. Dinesh Kumar Ojha, argued that the advertisement's non-cumulative clause was illegal as it contradicted the spirit of the statutory rules. Since the rules themselves did not explicitly bar aggregation, the benefit should be extended.

* They pointed out that the State itself had allowed cumulative relaxations in previous recruitments for posts like Nursing Officers and Pharmacists.

* They sought to distinguish the precedents cited by the State, arguing they were factually different, and instead relied on Supreme Court judgments holding that statutory rules must prevail over conflicting advertisement clauses.

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Court's Analysis: Rules, Precedents, and the Final Word

The Division Bench meticulously analyzed Rule 9 of the 1973 Rules , which lists various age relaxations. The court observed that while the rule provides distinct concessions for different categories, it is completely silent on whether these can be combined.

Writing for the bench, Justice Bhati noted that courts cannot supply omissions in a statute under the guise of interpretation. Citing the Supreme Court in Rachna v. Union of India , the judgment reiterated that framing recruitment policy is an executive function and courts should not interfere unless the policy is "absolutely capricious."

The High Court decisively held that the absence of an enabling clause for cumulative relaxation in the Rules must be seen as a "conscious exclusion by the framers."

A crucial part of the judgment was the explicit stipulation in the recruitment advertisement:

Note-1: The provisions for relaxation in the upper age limit mentioned above are non-cumulative (valÉap;h), meaning the candidates will be given the benefit of relaxation in the maximum age limit under any one of the provisions mentioned above, the benefit of relaxation in the age limit by adding more than one provision will not be given.

The court found this clause to be consistent with the statutory framework. It laid down the following principles for determining the applicability of age relaxations:

1. If the Rule itself specifies whether relaxation is cumulative or non-cumulative, the Rule will prevail.

2. If the Rule is silent, the terms of the advertisement will govern the recruitment process.

3. If both the Rule and the advertisement are silent, the default legal position is that relaxations are non-cumulative.

The bench heavily relied on its own precedents in Alsa Ram Meghwal and Dhuleshwar Ghogra , which had previously rejected claims for clubbing relaxations, thereby establishing a consistent judicial stance on the matter.

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Final Verdict and Implications

Allowing the State's appeals, the High Court quashed and set aside the Single Judge's judgment dated May 21, 2024. The court held that the respondents were not entitled to cumulative age relaxation, as the advertisement explicitly and validly prohibited it.

This judgment provides crucial clarity on service jurisprudence, affirming that the terms of a recruitment advertisement hold significant legal weight, especially when the governing statutory rules are silent on a particular issue. It reinforces the principle that candidates are bound by the "rules of the game" as laid out at the start of a selection process.