The Supreme Court recently upheld the plea of a woman whose selection for the post of Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), reserved for SC Sports (Women), was altered due to a roster change that came into effect after the recruitment advertisement was released, emphasizing that the 'rules of the game' cannot be changed midway.
The Appellant, who topped the SC Sports (Women) category exam, faced challenges regarding her selection for the Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) post after amendments to the Punjab Civil Services (Reservation of Posts for Women) Rules, 2020 introduced a new roster on 29.01.2021, removing the women’s reservation for the DSP post. The Punjab & Haryana High Court initially ruled in her favor, but a Division Bench remanded the case for reconsideration. The Appellant then approached the Supreme Court.
The Division Bench comprising Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia and Justice K. Vinod Chandran observed, “We are in agreement with the findings of the learned Single Judge for the reason that once an eligibility criteria was declared by means of a fresh Advertisement i.e. Advertisement No. 14 dated 11.12.2020, the same cannot be changed midway through the recruitment process, as the same would tantamount to ‘changing the rules of the game, after the game is played’ as held by this Court in K. Manjusree v. State of A.P., (2008) 3 SCC 512.”
The Supreme Court, relying on K. Manjusree v. State of A.P. (2008) and Tej Prakash Pathak v. Rajasthan High Court (2025)—both of which barred mid-process changes to recruitment rules—accepted the Appellant's argument that the recruitment should follow the original advertisement dated 11.12.2020, which had reserved one DSP post for SC Sports (Women).
“The crucial date in the present case is the advertisement dated 11.12.2020. This advertisement follows the 2020 Rules where 33% of reservation was to be made for women on every government post. Thus, DSP SC Sports was reserved for women. This was mentioned in the advertisement dated 11.12.2020. This advertisement or the 2020 Rules were never challenged. The respondents now cannot cry foul referring to an event post 11.12.2020 where the so called roster system came into existence. We have not even considered the need to examine the legality of this roster in principle. Sufficient will it be for our purpose to hold that post 11.12.2020 no change could have been made.” the Court said while allowing the appeal.
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