Challenge to completed recruitment process by "fence-sitters" is barred by delay and laches.

The Teachers Recruitment Board (TRB) issued Notification No. 13/2019 dated 27.11.2019 for direct recruitment to 97 posts of Block Educational Officer and conducted computer-based examinations on 14–16.02.2020, publishing results on 27.01.2021 and a revised mark list on 21.12.2021.

An Addendum dated 28.12.2021 increased vacancies from 97 to 120 following the Director of Elementary Education's request dated 09.11.2021 to include 23 additional vacancies.

The notification stipulated application of G.O.Ms.No.145, Personnel and Administrative Reforms (S) Department, dated 30.09.2010 for PSTM reservation, and 20% PSTM reservation was filled among the 97 vacancies; the Government, by Letter No.962/TRB/2022 dated 25.07.2022, clarified that two different Government Orders on PSTM could not be applied to the same recruitment.

The provisional selection list was published on 04.02.2022 covering 97 vacancies, with 96 candidates provisionally selected, followed by certificate verification and appointment orders.

Subsequently, a Division Bench of this Court, by judgment dated 07.09.2022 in W.P.Nos.6201 of 2013 etc. batch, addressed reservation for women candidates under Sections 26 and 27 of the Tamil Nadu Government Servants (Conditions of Service) Act, 2016.

The appellants instituted W.P.No.229 of 2023 in the year 2023 — approximately three years after the notification and one year after appointments — seeking to declare the selection list dated 04.02.2022 illegal for treating women's and PSTM reservations as vertical, contrary to Clause 3 of the Notification and the 07.09.2022 judgment, with a consequential direction to redraw the list and appoint them.

The learned Single Judge, by order dated 19.04.2023, dismissed the writ petition on the ground of delay and laches tantamounting to acquiescence.

1. Whether a writ petition challenging a recruitment notification/selection list is maintainable after completion of the selection process and issuance of appointment orders.

2. Whether the writ petition filed in 2023 was barred by delay and laches, amounting to acquiescence, given the selection concluded and appointments were made in 2022.

3. Whether the appellants could invoke the Division Bench judgment dated 07.09.2022 (W.P.Nos.6201 of 2013 etc. batch) to seek redrawing of the concluded selection list as unsuccessful "fence sitter" candidates.

The Court applied the doctrine of delay and laches governing discretionary writ jurisdiction, holding that if there is any illegality in a recruitment notification, an aggrieved person must challenge it before completion of the selection process, and where a tainted process is discovered only after publication of the selection list, the aggrieved must approach the Court immediately without undue delay.

The Court further applied the settled "fence sitters" doctrine — candidates who allow a selection process to run its course and challenge it only after its conclusion and after appointments are not entitled to maintain writ petitions.

Sections 26 and 27 of the Tamil Nadu Government Servants (Conditions of Service) Act, 2016 pertaining to women's reservation, and the prior Division Bench judgment dated 07.09.2022, which had directed rearrangement of select lists and declared Section 26 ultra vires the Constitution insofar as it mandated vertical arrangement of posts for female candidates.

Clause 15 of the Letters Patent.

Applying the doctrine of delay and laches to the undisputed timeline, the Court found the appellants had allowed the entire selection process — examination, selection list dated 04.02.2022, certificate verification, and issuance of appointment orders in 2022 — to conclude, and only instituted the writ petition in 2023 after the subsequent Division Bench judgment of 07.09.2022.

The Court reasoned that entertaining such petitions after appointments would open a "Pandora's box," enabling every similarly placed unsuccessful candidate to file further petitions on the strength of orders passed subsequent to appointment, continuously unsettling concluded selections.

It held the relief sought — declaring the provisional selection list illegal and redrawing it — was per se not maintainable after issuance of appointment orders.

Consequently, the Court declined to examine the merits, including the appellants' contention that they were meritorious and entitled to appointment, holding such submissions deserved no further consideration, and noting that a subsequent recruitment notification for the same posts had also been issued.

The Writ Appeal was dismissed, the order of the learned Single Judge dated 19.04.2023 in W.P.No.229 of 2023 was upheld with the consequential dismissal of the Writ Petition, and the connected Civil Miscellaneous Petitions were closed, with no order as to costs.