Delay and Laches Bar Challenging Recruitment Selection List After Issuance of Appointment Orders

The Teachers Recruitment Board (TRB) issued Recruitment Notification No.01/2021 dated 09.09.2021 for direct recruitment to the posts of Post Graduate Assistant / Physical Education Director Grade-I and Computer Instructor Grade-I for 2020-2021.

The notification was amended multiple times (Nos. 01A/2021, 01B/2021, 01C/2022, 01D/2022, and 01E/2022), with vacancy figures fluctuating from 2207 to 3237, then 3236, and finally 3209 (Backlog – 244; Current – 2965), and with no vacancies notified for Bio-Chemistry and Indian Culture.

The selection process concluded and provisional selection lists were published on 10.09.2022, 13.09.2022, 14.09.2022, 17.09.2022 and 30.09.2022, followed by appointment of selected candidates.

Subsequently, a batch of writ petitions was instituted concerning Sections 26 and 27 of the Tamil Nadu Government Servants (Conditions of Service) Act, 2016 regarding reservation for women candidates, which a Division Bench disposed of by common judgment dated 07.09.2022 in W.P.Nos.6201 of 2013 etc. batch.

The appellants, relying on paragraphs 43–44 of that judgment (providing that petitioners would be entitled to appointment only if they fell within merit upon rearrangement of lists, and declaring Section 26 ultra vires if it mandated vertical reservation for women), filed W.P.No.3626 of 2023 seeking to quash the provisional selection list dated 16.09.2022 for the post of Post Graduate Assistant (Tamil) — approximately two years after the notification and one year after appointments.

The learned Single Judge dismissed the writ petition on grounds of delay, laches, and acquiescence, which the appellants challenged in this writ appeal under Clause 15 of the Letters Patent.

1. Whether a writ petition seeking to quash a provisional selection list is maintainable after completion of the selection process and issuance of appointment orders.

2. Whether the writ petition, filed roughly two years after the recruitment notification and one year after appointments, is liable to be dismissed on the ground of delay and laches amounting to acquiescence.

3. Whether the appellants could claim entitlement to appointment based on the Division Bench judgment dated 07.09.2022 (W.P.Nos.6201 of 2013 batch) concerning women's reservation under Sections 26 and 27 of the 2016 Act, notwithstanding the concluded selection.

Sections 26 and 27 of the Tamil Nadu Government Servants (Conditions of Service) Act, 2016, governing reservation for women in public employment.

The Division Bench in W.P.Nos.6201 of 2013 etc. batch (judgment dated 07.09.2022) held at paras 43–44 that appointment would follow only from merit after rearrangement of lists, and that Section 26 would be ultra vires the Constitution if construed to mandate vertical setting apart of posts for women.

An aggrieved person must challenge illegality in a recruitment notification before completion of the selection process, and where the taint is discovered upon publication of the selection list, recourse to court must be immediate.

"Fence sitters" who participate in and await the outcome of a selection are not entitled to maintain writ petitions after its completion and after issuance of appointment orders.

The Court reasoned that the appellants had allowed the entire selection process under Notification No.01/2021 to run its course and approached the Court only in 2023 — after publication of the provisional selection lists, after appointment of selected candidates in 2021/2022, and only in the wake of the Division Bench's subsequent judgment of 07.09.2022, upon which they purported to rely.

Applying the settled rule that challenges to recruitment must precede completion of selection (or be mounted immediately upon discovery of any taint), the Court held that a prayer to quash the provisional selection list dated 16.09.2022 after appointment orders had been issued was per se not maintainable.

The inordinate delay — two years from notification and one year from appointments — constituted laches tantamounting to acquiescence, as rightly found by the Single Judge.

Entertaining such belated petitions would unsettle concluded appointments and invite identical claims from other unsuccessful participants, which the "fence sitter" doctrine specifically precludes.

The Court declined to examine other merits, holding that the appellants' claim of superior merit and entitlement to appointment "deserves no further consideration," noting that a subsequent recruitment notification for the same posts had already been issued.

The Writ Appeal was dismissed, the Writ Petition (W.P.No.3626 of 2023) stood dismissed, with no order as to costs, and all connected Civil Miscellaneous Petitions were closed.