Supreme Court Strikes Down Karnataka Law Validating 2011 Tainted Gazetted Probationers Recruitment

The Supreme Court of India, comprising Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran, has declared the Karnataka Civil Services (Validation of Selection and Appointment of 2011 Batch Gazetted Probationers) Act, 2022 unconstitutional and upheld the cancellation of the 2011 recruitment to Group A and B services. The selection through the State Public Service Commission was corrupt and blatantly nepotistic, the bench said, and could not be saved by a later validation law. It directed the Karnataka government to notify fresh recruitment for the vacant posts.

Appeals arising from the 2011 selection of gazetted probationers led to the judgment. The State had enacted the 2022 Act to validate the selection and continuance in service of candidates appointed through that process. The bench rejected that attempt. It held the legislature had no power to annul final judgments of constitutional courts and revive a recruitment found to be vitiated.

The 2011 process, the bench said, suffered from more than minor or technical lapses that could be cured. It was compromised at the root. The Court used the words corrupt and blatantly nepotistic for the manner of selection. On that finding, it sustained cancellation of the entire recruitment for Group A and Group B posts.

Persons who continued in service under cover of the 2022 Act can claim no equity, the bench held. It called the Validation Act stillborn legislation. The result is that appointments saved only by the impugned Act do not survive, and the appointees cannot seek continuance on grounds of long service, hardship or absence of individual fault.

A narrow protection was given to candidates against whom nothing tainted was found. Untainted appointed candidates, including the six appellants before the Court and the petitioners who were before the Karnataka Administrative Tribunal, will get a one-time age relaxation to appear again. If selected afresh, their seniority will run from the date of fresh appointment. There will be no back wages and no claim for notional appointment from an earlier date.

Why Supreme Court of India rejected validation

At the centre was whether the State legislature could validate a selection struck down by the courts. The bench answered in the negative. It said a validation law is allowed only when the legislature removes the legal defect pointed out by the court and stays inside its own legislative field. It cannot simply declare that a judicial finding of illegality will cease to operate.

That bar is well settled in the constitutional law of India. A legislature may change the law on which a judgment rests, with retrospective effect where it has that power, and thus remove the basis of the decision. What it cannot do is sit in appeal over the judgment itself or direct that the judgment be treated as void without changing its legal foundation. The Court placed the 2022 Act in the second category.

The 2011 recruitment had been cancelled after findings on the integrity of the process. The Validation Act did not address or cure those findings. It sought to keep the selections and appointments alive by legislative declaration. The bench held such an exercise breaks the separation of powers and the rule of law. It lets the political branch erase the outcome of adjudication.

Judgments of constitutional courts attain finality unless set aside in accordance with law. The legislature lacked authority to nullify that finality, the bench said. If such validation were permitted, any finding of corruption or favouritism in public employment could be undone by a later statute. That outcome, the Court said, would damage public faith in recruitment and in judicial review.

Administrative need was raised by the State to defend the law. The need to protect appointees and to keep administration running could not sustain the Act, the Court said. Administrative convenience cannot legitimise a process found to be fundamentally compromised. A statute must be tested on competence and constitutional limits, not on the difficulties that may follow from invalidation.

Tainted selection described as nepotistic

To explain why cancellation was upheld, the bench returned to the record of the 2011 selection. The process for Group A and B gazetted probationers, held through the State Public Service Commission, suffered from corruption and favouritism going to the root, it said. The phrase blatantly nepotistic showed the irregularities were not isolated or peripheral.

Where a selection is vitiated at its foundation, the Court said, it cannot be split readily into tainted and untainted parts unless the material permits such separation. The bench upheld cancellation of the recruitment as a whole. That finding was the basis for rejecting the plea that at least the untainted candidates should be retained in service under the Validation Act.

Articles 14 and 16 require open and fair competition for public employment. A backdoor validation of a corrupt selection denies equal opportunity to other eligible candidates who never got a fair chance, the Court said. It also puts persons chosen through an unfair process in Group A and B posts that carry supervisory and decision-making powers.

Through counsel, some appointees had argued they had served for years, faced no adverse finding personally, and had built careers in the belief the 2022 Act had settled their status. The bench acknowledged the hardship but held hardship alone cannot create a right to stay in a post obtained through a void process. Once the Act was found stillborn, no legal right could flow from it.

Sympathy for individuals was kept apart from enforcement of constitutional standards. Retention under an unconstitutional validation would give effect to the very illegality struck down, the Court said. For that reason, it declined to use equity to preserve the appointments.

One-time age relief for untainted candidates

Denying continuance, the Court still opened a narrow window for those against whom nothing tainted was found. Untainted appointed candidates, including the six appellants before the Supreme Court and those who had approached the Karnataka Administrative Tribunal as petitioners, may compete again with age relaxation as a one-time measure.

Time lost since 2011 was the reason. Many candidates would now be over the age limit for entry to Group A and B services through no fault of their own, after years in litigation and service under the impugned law. They should not be barred at the threshold when fresh selection is held, the Court said.

Clear conditions were attached to that relief. Seniority will count only from appointment under the fresh recruitment. No back wages will be paid for service under the earlier selection or the Validation Act. No notional seniority or deemed appointment from 2011 or any later date linked to the cancelled process will apply.

Service consequences follow from those conditions. Even if the same persons succeed again, they will enter as fresh recruits for pay, seniority and promotion. Past service under the cancelled recruitment will give no edge over other new entrants in the same batch. The State will face no claims for arrears tied to the period of invalid appointment.

Eligibility to re-appear is all the relief gives. Selection is not assured. The candidates must go through the full competitive process to be notified by the government and meet the standards for the posts. The Court framed the direction as a fair chance, not a reservation of posts for the earlier appointees.