Notifications withholding joining pending examination upheld; directions compelling appointments and joining set aside.

The University of Delhi undertook recruitment to the posts of Laboratory Attendant and Library Attendant pursuant to an advertisement issued in February 2021.

By notifications dated 25 August 2023 and 29 August 2023, the University placed the joining of selected candidates on hold pending examination of the selection process.

The affected candidates filed writ petitions challenging those notifications.

By a common judgment dated 30 May 2025, the learned Single Judge quashed the notifications, directed the University to complete document verification and the remaining selection formalities, and directed that the candidates be permitted to join with consequential benefits upon appointment.

The University preferred the present appeals.

While the appeals were pending, this Court decided LPA No. 440/2025 in University of Delhi & Anr. v. Deepak & Ors., Neutral Citation No. 2026:DHC:7413-DB, concerning the same recruitment process and notifications.

The parties in the present appeals agreed that the factual and legal issues were identical to those decided in that judgment.

Whether the appeals concerning the University’s notifications dated 25 August 2023 and 29 August 2023, and the common judgment dated 30 May 2025, were required to be decided in terms of this Court’s judgment in University of Delhi & Anr. v. Deepak & Ors.?

Whether the findings and relief granted in the judgment in LPA No. 440/2025 applied equally to the recruitment of Laboratory Attendants and Library Attendants involved in the present appeals?

The Court applied the principle of binding judicial consistency and precedent: where subsequent appeals involve identical facts, the same impugned administrative action, and the same judgment under challenge, they may be disposed of in accordance with the prior decision governing those issues.

The Court relied specifically on University of Delhi & Anr. v. Deepak & Ors., Neutral Citation No. 2026:DHC:7413-DB, which had considered the legality of the notifications placing the joining of selected candidates on hold and had allowed the University’s appeal by setting aside the impugned judgment.

No separate statutory provision or additional precedent was examined in the present order.

The Court noted that the recruitment process, the notifications dated 25 August 2023 and 29 August 2023, and the common judgment dated 30 May 2025 were the same matters considered in the earlier judgment.

Since the parties accepted that the facts and legal challenge in the present appeals were identical to those in LPA No. 440/2025, the Court held that the findings in the earlier judgment applied with equal force.

The fact that two appeals concerned Laboratory Attendants and one concerned Library Attendants did not alter the result because all recruitments arose from the same advertisement and were affected by the same notifications.

Accordingly, the common judgment dated 30 May 2025 was set aside insofar as it related to the writ petitions involved in LPA Nos. 482/2025, 483/2025 and 486/2025.

All pending applications were disposed of, and there was no order as to costs.