SACHIN KUMAR Vs. DELHI SUBORDINATE SERVICE SELECTION BOARD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This judgment has been divided into the following sections:

(2.) This judgment visits a familiar conundrum in service jurisprudence. The constitutional values which undergird Articles 14 and 16 mandate that selection processes conducted by public authorities to make recruitments have to be fair, transparent and accountable. All too often, human fallibility and foibles intrude into the selection processes. Selection involves intense competition and there is no dearth of individuals who try and bend the rules to gain an unfair leap in the race. Irregularities in the process give rise to misgivings over whether the process has denied equal access to all persons. The sanctity of the selection process comes under a cloud. The detection of individual wrongdoing by candidates may result in action being taken to exclude those whose credentials or performance is tainted. But when the entire process is tainted, the authority in charge of conducting it may decide to cancel the selection as a whole. Judicial review is then invoked to challenge the decision to cancel the entire process. The guiding principles have evolved over the past five decades as new challenges emerged and novel attempts to suborn the legitimacy of recruitment processes have come to the fore. The Delhi High Court in the present case upheld the view of the Central Administrative Tribunal ("Tribunal") that the cancellation of the entire process was invalid but it confined the relief to six candidates who had moved the proceedings before the Tribunal in the first instance. Like other cases of its genre, this batch of appeals calls the court to balance two competing considerations : the need to preserve public confidence in and the sanctity of selection to public posts and the requirement of observing fairness to candidates who invest time and resources in attempting to clear through a selection. Both these considerations have a constitutional foundation going beyond service and administrative law principles. The issue has travelled to the court for resolution and the path ahead requires us to revisit and evolve the law on the subject.

(3.) This batch of twelve appeals arises from a judgment of a Division Bench of the High Court of Delhi dated 13 January 2020. Two petitions under Article 226 of the Constitution were instituted by the Delhi Subordinate Services Selection Board ("DSSSB") in order to question the legality of the orders of the Tribunal dated 1 February 2017 and 27 February 2017. The Tribunal annulled the decision of the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi ("GNCTD") to cancel the recruitment process conducted for appointments to the post of Head Clerk [(Grade 2) (DASS)] in the GNCTD. As a consequence, the Tribunal directed the DSSSB to conclude the selection process for which the Tier-I and Tier-II examinations had been conducted. The proceedings before the Tribunal in two Oas[1] were instituted by a total of six applicants, three in each of the OAs. The Tribunal's decision entails that the benefit of its order setting aside the recruitment process would enure not only to the six applicants who had moved it but to others as well though they had not challenged the cancellation of the recruitment process. The High Court by its judgment held that