An appointee who accepts and joins an alternative Group C post cannot later claim the advertised post.

The applicant participated in the recruitment process conducted pursuant to Employment Notice No. 01/2018 for the post of Technician Grade III/Bridge and was included in the panel prepared by the Railway Recruitment Board, Chandigarh.

Owing to an error in calculating direct-recruitment and promotional vacancies, excess vacancies had been advertised. Of the 277 candidates empanelled, only 126 were accepted for the Bridge wing, while the remaining candidates were diverted to other departments against available vacancies.

The applicant was appointed as Technician Grade III/Fitter (Engineering) and posted under SSE/P.Way, BSB, Varanasi.

The applicant accepted the offer of appointment and joined at BSB, Varanasi without protest. He thereafter filed the present Original Application seeking a direction for posting in the Technical Grade III/Fitter (Engineering) post under SSE/Works.

1. Whether the applicant was entitled to appointment or posting against the Technician Grade III/Bridge or Fitter (Engineering)/Works vacancy advertised under Employment Notice No. 01/2018, despite the respondents’ subsequent correction of the excess-vacancy error?

2. Whether the applicant’s appointment under SSE/P.Way, BSB, constituted appointment to a Group D post or otherwise violated the terms of the recruitment, and whether he could challenge that appointment after accepting the offer and joining without protest?

The Tribunal applied the administrative-law principles that an erroneous advertisement does not confer an indefeasible right to appointment against vacancies that did not exist, and that an appointing authority may correct an excess-vacancy error and allocate selected candidates against available posts in accordance with administrative requirements.

It further applied the principle that a candidate who accepts an appointment offer and joins the post without protest cannot subsequently challenge the appointment merely because a different posting or post was preferred, particularly where the post offered is of the same applicable service category and is otherwise valid.

The Tribunal found that the panel contained 277 candidates, whereas the Bridge wing could accept only 126 candidates because promotional and direct-recruitment vacancies had been incorrectly combined while calculating the vacancies.

The excess vacancies were therefore diverted to other departments, including 24 available Technician Grade III/Fitter (Engineering) posts. The applicant was appointed against one such vacancy in the Engineering Department under SSE/P.Way, BSB.

The Tribunal rejected the applicant’s contention that he had been appointed to a Group D post, finding from the Railway’s classification that the post offered at BSB was a Group C post.

It also considered significant that the applicant accepted the appointment offer and joined duty without raising any protest.

Since the respondents had remedied the recruitment error and had provided the applicant with a valid Group C appointment against an available post, the Tribunal held that he could not claim a right to the originally advertised post or seek a different posting as a matter of entitlement.

His appointment under SSE/P.Way, BSB, was found to be to a Group C post, and his acceptance and joining without protest further defeated his challenge.

The Original Application was accordingly dismissed as devoid of merit, and all connected Miscellaneous Applications were disposed of. No order as to costs was made.