Disqualified after change of rules, Supreme Court directs Manipur HC to appoint Dalit candidate as District Judge

A bench of Justices Hrishikesh Roy, Sudhanshu Dhulia and S V N Bhatti said the High Court could not have fixed minimum cut off marks of 40% for interview by a full court resolution in 2015 without amending the Manipur Judicial Services Rules, 2005.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has said a full court resolution can't override statutory rules, as it directed the Manipur High Court to appoint a Dalit candidate to the post of District Judge who was disqualified for not having secured minimum 40 per cent cut off in interview, fixed subsequently.

A bench of Justices Hrishikesh Roy, Sudhanshu Dhulia and S V N Bhatti said the High Court could not have fixed minimum cut off marks of 40 per cent for interview by a full court resolution in 2015 without amending the Manipur Judicial Services Rules, 2005.

The court, in a recent judgment, held executive instructions cannot override statutory rules where the method of final selection by combining the cumulative grade value obtained in the written and the viva voce examinations is specified categorically.

"The decision of the full court to depart from the expected exercise of preparing the merit list as per the unamended rules is clearly violative of the substantive legitimate expectation of the petitioners. It also fails the tests of fairness, consistency, and predictability and hence is violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India," the bench said.

The court noted the present case arising out of a writ petition filed by Salam Samarjeet Singh is on the failure to make the selection, in accordance with the unamended Manipur Judicial Services Rules, based on aggregate marks secured by him in the written examination and the viva-voce test.

Prescribing minimum marks for interview may not, however, be manifestly arbitrary, it said.

"While the intention for introducing a minimum cut-off through the High Court Resolution may be bona fide, in the present case, it is not grounded in legality as it cannot override the statutory rules. The minimum marks for interview was prescribed through a High Court Resolution without amending the rules," the bench said.

The court felt it would be unjustified to deny appointment to the sole Scheduled Caste candidate, who successfully qualified both the written exam and the interview, in accordance with the then existing rules.

The court directed the High Court of Manipur to issue an appointment letter to the petitioner within four weeks with notional seniority since 2015 as he secured 50.6 per cent aggregate marks in the recruitment tests held in 2013 for the post of District Judge (Grade I).

The petitioner with his 18.8 marks in the interview out of the maximum permissible 50 marks would have qualified, as his cumulative score (written 158.50 and viva 18.8) would have been 177.3 out of total 350 marks. His percentage in aggregate will then be 50.6 per cent and this would have ensured his success as per the unamended rules, the court said.

The court's judgment came upon a reference as in 2016 a two-judge bench had delivered split verdict in the case.