SC Reinstates Staff Fired 17 Years Ago, Upholds Appointments Beyond Vacancies

In Sanjay Kumar Mishra & Ors. v. District Judge, Ambedkar Nagar (U.P.), the Supreme Court corrected a long-standing administrative wrong by reinstating four Class IV employees whose services had been terminated nearly seventeen years ago for having been appointed “in excess of the advertised vacancies.”

The Court held that the appointments were valid under the recruitment rules applicable to subordinate courts in Uttar Pradesh and that the High Court erred in mechanically upholding the termination without appreciating the scope of Rule 12 of the Subordinate Civil Courts Ministerial Establishment Rules.

What's The Matter?

The appellants were appointed in 2001 against Class IV posts (orderlies, process servers, and farashes) in the Ambedkar Nagar judgeship. Although the original advertisement notified 12 vacancies, it explicitly stated that the number of posts could “increase or decrease.”

In 2008, the appointments of four candidates were cancelled on the ground that six appointments had been made beyond the number of advertised vacancies.

The High Court of Allahabad, both at the single bench and division bench level, upheld the termination on the premise that no appointment could exceed the number of vacancies advertised.

What Happened in Court?

Before the Supreme Court, the appellants relied on Naseem Ahmad v. State of U.P. (2011) 2 SCC 734, where the Court had held that Rule 12 permitted preparation of a waiting list of “reasonable dimensions” to fill vacancies arising within the recruitment year or the succeeding year.

Justice K. Vinod Chandran, writing for the Bench also comprising Chief Justice B.R. Gavai, found the situation “almost identical” to Naseem Ahmad, noting that the Ambedkar Nagar advertisement itself contemplated fluctuation in vacancy numbers and that subsequent recruitment occurred only years later in 2008 and 2015 proving that new vacancies arose during the period.

The Court observed that the term “reasonable dimension” in Rule 12 signifies that a waiting list must be large enough to meet vacancies that may arise within a reasonable period after recruitment.

Appointments made from such a list do not violate the recruitment process if they correspond to subsequently arising vacancies within the same or immediately succeeding recruitment year.

Holding the termination unjustified, the Court also took note of the long lapse of time. Since the appellants had been out of employment for seventeen years, it directed that those below the age of superannuation be accommodated in existing or supernumerary Class IV posts in Ambedkar Nagar, while those who had crossed the age limit be granted minimum pension benefits.

The intervening period, however, would not count for service or pension purposes.

The Court clarified that the directions were issued in the “peculiar circumstances” of the case and were not to be treated as precedent.

Nonetheless, the judgment restores the equilibrium between administrative pragmatism and fairness, ensuring that candidates appointed in good faith are not penalized for clerical miscalculations in vacancy estimation.

By reiterating the flexible interpretation of Rule 12 and emphasizing that recruitment cannot be viewed in isolation from future vacancies reasonably anticipated, the Supreme Court reaffirmed that procedural technicalities must not overshadow substantive justice in public employment.