Inclusion in a 20% Extra Select Panel Does Not Confer an Indefeasible Right to Appointment.

The applicants applied for Group 'D' posts in the North Eastern Railway (NER) under Advertisement No. NER/RRC/D/2007/1 dated 06.12.2007

They cleared the physical, written, medical, and document verification stages but were placed in a "20% extra" replacement panel and not the main merit list

NER initially advertised 4549 vacancies but filled only 4087, as 500 vacancies for Trackmen in the Construction Division were surrendered/abolished

The applicants contended that since vacancies remained unfilled due to non-joining or medical unfitness, they should be appointed as per RBE No. 121/2005 and RBE No. 73/2008

This matter was previously remanded by the Allahabad High Court via Writ A No. 8561 of 2021 for fresh consideration of whether NER was justified in reducing vacancies and whether the applicants had a vested right to appointment

1. Whether the ratio in Dinesh Kumar Kashyap v. South East Central Railway (2019) 12 SCC 798 regarding the appointment of candidates from a replacement panel is applicable to a recruitment process from 2007

2. Whether the respondents' decision to surrender 500 advertised vacancies midway through the selection process was legally permissible

3. Whether inclusion in a replacement panel/select list confers an indefeasible right to appointment when vacancies exist

Shankarsan Dash v. Union of India (1991) 3 SCC 47, which holds that inclusion in a select list does not confer an indefeasible right to appointment, and the State is not under a legal duty to fill all vacancies provided it acts bona fide and non-arbitrarily

Tej Prakash Pathak v. Rajasthan High Court, stating that eligibility criteria cannot be changed midway unless permitted by rules or the advertisement

Ashish Kumar v. Union of India, which establishes that a select list is not a permanent reservoir and no relief can be granted after the expiry of the list's life

Distinguished Dinesh Kumar Kashyap v. South East Central Railway, noting its relief was restricted to specific litigants and a different recruitment year (2010)

The Tribunal reasoned that the 2007 advertisement specifically stipulated in Paragraph 14.1 that vacancies were provisional and subject to increase or decrease, thereby making the reduction of 500 Trackman posts legally permissible under the terms of the recruitment

Regarding the surrendering of posts by the Construction Division, the Tribunal found the action bona fide as those posts were abolished and no longer existed in the department

It distinguished the Dinesh Kumar Kashyap case, noting that the Supreme Court's directions therein were specific to the 2010 recruitment cycle and "fence-sitters" or candidates from different recruitment years could not claim the same relief as a matter of right

The Tribunal found that the applicants, being lower in merit than the last selected candidate and belonging to the replacement panel, had no enforceable legal right to appointment especially since the life of the 2007 selection panel had long since expired

The Original Application was dismissed, and no relief was granted as the selection process was completed years prior and the panel had outlived its utility