Can't punish candidates for no lapse or fault, SC orders UP govt to appoint female health workers [Read Judgment]

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has declared that a candidate for a job cannot be punished once it was found that there was no lapse or delay on the part of the applicant or there was no fault by him in not producing the no objection certificate at the relevant time.

The top court ordered the Uttar Pradesh government to make appointment of a group of females to the post of health workers as applications were rejected as they failed to produce the no objection certificate on time.

A bench of Justices M R Shah and Hima Kohli allowed appeal filed by advocate Alakh Alok Srivastava on behalf of Kumari Laxmi Saroj and others against the Allahabad High Court's judgement of July 13, 2022.

On December 15, 2021, the Uttar Pradesh government invited applications to the post of female health workers. Among other qualifications, it was required for the candidates to be duly registered with the Uttar Pradesh Nurses and Midwife Council, Lucknow. All the appellants filled up their applications forms through online mode and appeared in the said examination. The eligibility of the candidate was required to be considered only during verification of the documents. All the appellants were registered with the MP Council.

All the appellants except one submitted the applications for the UP Council registration. The MP  Council furnished the NOC. However, the UP Council took time to issue the registration and therefore, the respective appellants could not produce the UP registration during verification of documents. Thus, the candidatures of the appellants were not considered further for appointment on the ground that at the time of verification of the documents they were not duly registered with the Uttar Pradesh Nurses and Midwife Council, Lucknow. Therefore, they were ineligible as they did not possess the essential qualifications, as per the advertisement. The appellants filed the writ petition before the High Court, which dismissed their plea.

After going through the facts of the case, the bench said it can be seen that as such, there was no fault on the part of the appellants in not producing the UP Council registration either at the time of submitting the applications forms or even at the time of verification of the documents.

As such, all the appellants except one had applied for UP Council registration before the date of application. Therefore, for no fault of theirs, the appellants could not have been made to suffer.

The issue involved is directly covered by the decision of this court in the case of Narender  Singh Vs  State of Haryana and   Ors (2022).

In the said decision, it was held once it was found that there was no lapse/delay on the part of the appellants in not producing the NOC at the relevant time, he cannot be punished for the same.

When the said decision was pressed into service before the High Court on behalf of the appellants, the High Court has not followed the same by  observing that  the directions issued by the top court were in exercise of powers under Article 142 (extraordinary power of the SC to do complete justice) of the Constitution of India.

This "is a misreading and/or misinterpreting of the judgment of this court. This Court has specifically laid down the law that if it is found that there is no lapse/delay on the part of the applicant, he cannot be punished  for no fault attributable to him. However, as in that case, another candidate/employee was already appointed, this court had protected his service also while exercising the powers under Article 142. Therefore, exercise of the  powers under Article 142 was for protecting the service of another employee. The High Court has as such, misread the judgment of this Court, the bench said, setting aside the High Court judgement for being unsustainable.

"The respondent(s) are directed to appoint the appellants to the post of Health Worker (Female) within a period of six weeks from today, if otherwise, they are found meritorious and fulfilling the other eligibility criteria. However, it is made clear that the appellants shall be entitled to all the benefits from the date of their actual appointments," the bench said.

[Read Judgment]