UNION OF INDIA Vs. S P TRIPATHI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Whether an authority, holding and/or conducting a selection process, is wholly debarred from cancelling the selection process or the select list? Whether a selected, in the select list, has an indefeasible right to challenge, in a Court of competent jurisdiction, the cancellation of select list even when cancellation of select list by the authority, holding or conducting a selection process, is reasonable and/or non-arbitrary? Can a candidate, who has participated in a selection process and does not figure in the select list, never challenge the select list on the principal that a candidate, having participated in a selection process and failed, cannot turn back and challenge the selection process or whether such a candidate can challenge process of selection or the select list if the selection process suffers from violation of the relevant rules of recruitment, or suffers from mala fide, bias or prejudice? These are, broadly speaking, some of questions, which the present set of three writ petitions, made under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, have raised. While the writ petition filed by the Union of India and its functionaries have given rise to CWJC No. 21948 of 2013, the two writ petitions filed by those, who had participated in the selection process, in question, and failed, have given rise to CWJC Nos. 20417 of 2012 and 20460 of 2013.

(2.) What gave rise to the present set of writ petitions may, in brief, be set out as under:

(3.) The writ petitioners, in the two writ petitions, namely, C.W.J.C. Nos. 20417 of 2013 and 20460 of 2013, are Group 'C' employees of the Railways and posted in the offices of Accounts Department, at different places, under East Central Railway.