Karnataka’s 2011 Civil-Service Appointments Must End as Supreme Court Strikes Down Law Validating Tainted Recruitment

In 2011, Karnataka commenced recruitment for 362 Group A and B Gazetted Probationer posts under the Karnataka Recruitment of Gazetted Probationers (Appointment by Competitive Examinations) Rules, 1997.

Following an inquiry that disclosed corruption, nepotism and other irregularities, the State cancelled the selection.

The cancellation was upheld by the High Court and this Court; subsequent attempts to resume the process from the written-examination stage also failed.

In 2022, the State enacted the Karnataka Civil Services (Validation of Selection and Appointment of 2011 Batch Gazetted Probationers) Act, 2022, under which appointments were made.

The appellants challenged the Act and orders refusing interim relief. They appealed to this Court after the High Court dismissed the challenge and the related interim-relief proceedings.

The Karnataka Civil Services (Validation of Selection and Appointment of 2011 Batch Gazetted Probationers) Act, 2022 was the challenged enactment.

The Court applied the principle that a legislature may retrospectively amend the law and remove the legal basis of a judicial decision, but cannot simply declare a final judicial decision ineffective or annul it; a valid legislative response must change the underlying legal basis.

It relied on Medical Council of India v. State of Kerala, (2019) 13 SCC 185; Janapada Sabha, Chhindwara v. Central Provinces Syndicate Ltd., (1970) 1 SCC 509; In re: Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal, 1993 Supp (1) SCC 96; and S.T. Sadiq v. State of Kerala, (2015) 4 SCC 400.

The Court also applied the principle that a public-interest litigant cannot withdraw a PIL as of right without the Court’s leave.

The earlier decisions had upheld cancellation because the recruitment process was tainted by rampant corruption and nepotism, not because of a defect that the 2022 Act corrected.

The Act instead sought to reverse the cancellation and validate appointments, thereby overriding the judgments of the High Court and this Court without changing the legal basis on which those judgments rested.

The State’s stated concern for candidates’ hardship could not justify that result.

Nor could the absence of candidates from the criminal proceedings, or a proposed distinction between tainted and untainted candidates, preserve appointments: the entire selection had been cancelled, and the appointments depended on the unconstitutional Act.

Given the time elapsed, the Court declined to revive the old process and fashioned a fresh-recruitment remedy.

It directed the State to recruit for the vacant Group A and B posts under the current recruitment rules.

The previously appointed candidates not found tainted, the six appellants and petitioners in pending KAT proceedings were to receive a one-time age relaxation to compete with other eligible candidates.

Any successful candidate would have seniority only from the date of fresh appointment and no back wages or notional appointment; for previously serving candidates who are selected again, prior service is to count for pension and retirement benefits.