The ban on alternative appointments for medically unfit candidates does not apply to medically fit candidates.

The respondents applied for Group D railway posts under an employment notification published on 16 August 2012, indicating their preferences among the posts. After the selection process and medical examination, they were found fit in particular medical categories, though not necessarily for their highest-preference posts

The Central Administrative Tribunal allowed their original applications and directed the Railways to reconsider them for posts of their next preference if they were found unsuitable for their earlier-preference posts.

The Union of India and railway authorities challenged that order, relying on Railway Circular No. 91/2009, which they argued prohibited alternative appointments for medically unfit candidates.

1. Whether Railway Circular No. 91/2009 barred consideration of the respondents for posts of their next preference when they had been found medically fit in a category suitable for those posts

2. Whether the Tribunal’s direction was perverse or legally erroneous so as to warrant interference by the High Court

Railway Circular No. 91/2009 prohibits alternative employment for a medically unfit candidate; it does not, on the court’s reading, bar consideration of a candidate who has passed the medical examination in a category qualifying them for a particular post.

The court also considered the selection and medical-fitness framework in paragraph 16 of the employment notification and paragraph 7.8 of RBE 121/2005, under which candidates are medically assessed against the requirements of particular posts.

On judicial review, the court considered the principle that a plausible Tribunal view should not be displaced merely because another view is possible; the respondent’s counsel relied on Syed Yakoob v. K.S. Radhakrishnan, AIR 1964 SC 477, and Surya Dev Rai v. Ram Chander Rai, (2003) 6 SCC 682.

The court distinguished candidates who fail the medical examination from candidates who are medically fit at a lower category than that required for their first-choice post. The respondents fell into the latter group: each had been found fit in a specified category and could therefore be considered for a post requiring that level of fitness.

Since Circular No. 91/2009 addressed medically unfit candidates, the court held that it did not defeat the respondents’ claims. The Tribunal’s direction to consider their next preferences was therefore a sustainable view, not a perverse or erroneous one warranting writ interference.

Finding no perversity or error in the Tribunal’s order, it dismissed all the writ petitions and discharged the rule.