The Supreme Court recently struck down a Tamil Nadu government order that granted seniority to in-service candidates over open market recruits, even when the latter had higher exam scores. The Court ruled that seniority must be determined strictly on the basis of marks obtained in the selection exams, not on prior service experience.
The Supreme Court examined a case under the Tamil Nadu Police Subordinate Service Rules, 1955, where a 1995 Government Order reserved 20% of Sub-Inspector vacancies for in-service Head Constables and gave them seniority over open competition candidates. This seniority benefit, not originally part of the statutory rules, placed in-service candidates above others despite lower exam scores.
The bench of Justice BV Nagarathna and Justice SC Sharma observed, “the amendment brought vide G.O. dated 21.11.2017 amending Rule 25(a) of the 1955 Rules, which provides for grant of seniority to all in-service candidates over and above candidates recruited from the open market is certainly violative of Articles 14, 16 and 21 of the Constitution of India and deserves to be struck down by this Court.”
The Supreme Court ruled that the Tamil Nadu government's decision to retrospectively grant seniority to in-service candidates—despite their lower merit in competitive exams—was unconstitutional and violated Articles 14, 16, and 21 of the Constitution. The Court observed that granting preferential treatment to less meritorious in-service candidates, who had already benefited from a 20% recruitment quota, was unjustified. It further held that amending recruitment rules with retrospective effect, to alter the basis of seniority, is impermissible. Relying on Dinesh Kumar Gupta v. High Court of Rajasthan (2020), the Court reaffirmed that seniority in direct recruitment must be determined solely by performance in the examination, not by past service.
Further the Court added, “In the present case, the direct recruitment has been done to 80% of the vacancies through candidates from open market and 20% of the vacancies under the direct requirement quota from in service candidates and pre-amended Rule 25 provides for fixation of seniority with reference to the rank assigned by the appointing authority in the select list meaning thereby only on the basis of marks obtained by each and every individual candidate. Therefore, this Court is of the considered opinion that all seniority list(s) right from 1995 deserve to be re-casted by assigning proper seniority to the candidates who have been appointed from the open market as well as from in-service candidates solely on the basis of ranks assigned to the selected candidates by the appointing authority on the basis of marks obtained by them in the examination on the basis of which they have been selected and appointed to the post of Sub-Inspector of Police. There is no other process which can be followed in the present case.”
The Supreme Court ordered Tamil Nadu to revise Sub-Inspector seniority lists based on exam marks, not service history. Existing promotions won't be reversed, but future ones must wait for the updated list. A single merit-based exam will now apply to all candidates, including the 20% in-service quota.
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