The Punjab & Haryana High Court has clearly stated that a selection process cannot be kept open indefinitely, as doing so would violate Article 14 of the Constitution, which guarantees equality before the law.
“The selection process cannot be kept open indefinitely. Keeping a selection process open-ended undermines the certainty and finality essential to public administration. An indefinite selection process also violates the principles of Article 14 of the Constitution as it allows unequal treatment of candidates and denies a level playing field to the future candidates,” observed Justice Vinod S. Bhardwaj.
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The court made this remark while hearing the petition filed by individuals challenging the 2014 advertisement for the post of Forest Guard. The Principal Chief Conservator of Forest, Panchkula had earlier rejected the petitioners' claim for appointment on the ground that they secured 117.40 marks, which was lower than the 117.60 marks of the last selected candidate under the Backward Class (BC) 'B' category.
The petitioners argued that after the merit list was revised, 17 posts under BC 'B' category became available. Out of these, 10 candidates joined, while 7 did not, and 2 from the earlier list also failed to join. Thus, they claimed 9 posts remained vacant, and as they were on the waiting list, they should be considered for appointment.
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However, the Court found no merit in their claims. It noted that the petitioners themselves acknowledged that 19 persons were appointed after the revision of the merit list, nullifying their claim of remaining vacancies.
"The claim of the petitioners, however, lacks merit. The best case of the petitioners itself is that consequent upon revision of merit list, 17 posts in BC 'B' Category became available and 10 persons joined while a total of 09 posts were left vacant," the Court stated.
"The process is not open ended to eventually expand the zone of waiting list and revise the waiting list as well," it further added.
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Justice Bhardwaj also emphasized that the result was from 2014, and more than 10 years have passed, making the merit list stale and irrelevant in the present context. The Court noted that many appointments would have already been made through subsequent recruitment processes.
"A Constitutional Court thus needs to impose self-restraint in such cases where delay is not well explained," the Court highlighted.
With these findings, the Court dismissed the petition, stating that continuing such selection indefinitely goes against the spirit of the Constitution.
The petitioners were represented by Advocate Mr. Mukesh Kumar Verma.
Case Title: Naresh Kumar and Another v. State of Haryana and Others
