Leelavathi N. & Ors. v. State of Karnataka & Ors.

SLP (CIVIL) NO(S). 27984-27988 OF 2023

(J.K. MAHESHWARI and VIJAY BISHNOI, JJ)

The Supreme Court of India addressed a set of appeals against the Karnataka High Court’s decision to send a recruitment controversy to the Karnataka State Administrative Tribunal (KSAT). The dispute emanated from a 21 March 2022 recruitment notice by the Department of Public Education, Government of Karnataka, inviting applications for 15,000 Graduate Primary Teachers (Classes 6–8) in 35 education districts. Examinations were conducted in May 2022, and the temporary select list was announced on 18 November 2022. Some married women candidates, however, were not included in the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category but were put in the General Merit list. The grounds taken were that these candidates had submitted caste-cum-income certificates issued in their fathers’ names instead of their husbands’. The authority responsible for selection, the Deputy Director of Public Instruction (DDPI), declined to accept such certificates for OBC classification, and hence they were excluded from the reserved list.

Disappointed candidates moved the Karnataka High Court, requesting cancellation of the provisional select list and recognition of their OBC status. In spite of an earlier direction by the Kalaburagi Bench of the High Court that the like petitioners should approach the KSAT, the Single Judge had entertained the petitions. Three questions were framed: maintainability of the writ petitions before the High Court, whether caste and income have to be assessed from the husband or parents of a married woman, and whether the DDPI has jurisdiction to interpret caste and income certificates.

On 30 January 2023, by judgment, the Single Judge granted the petitions. On maintainability, the Court ruled that in rare situations where there were huge numbers of affected candidates, the High Court could exercise jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution. On the merits, the Single Judge held that the income and caste of a married woman have to be ascertained from her parents and not her husband because caste is defined by birth and not by marriage. The Court also held that the DDPI had no power to interpret or reject certificates given by competent authorities and declared that the Government Order of 12 December 1986, on which the DDPI acted, was unsustainable. Accordingly, the 18 November 2022 provisional list was quashed to the extent that it placed OBC women as general candidates, and the State was ordered to place them under their respective OBC categories.

Thereafter, the Government made a new provisional select list on 27 February 2023, which reincluded the previously excluded OBC candidates. Such a revision pushed out 451 candidates, including the current appellants, whose merit ranking fell. The last select list came out on 8 March 2023. Candidates prejudicially impacted by this revision submitted new writ petitions before the High Court, but the Division Bench rejected them as not maintainable, asking petitioners to approach the KSAT. The ousted candidates, such as Leelavathi N. and others, subsequently submitted writ appeals before the Division Bench against the Single Judge’s order.

On 12th October 2023, the Division Bench partially granted the appeals and set aside the order of the Single Judge, holding that the writ petitions were not maintainable in the High Court. The Bench again asserted that the KSAT is the court of first instance in all service and recruitment disputes concerning the State or its instrumentalities. The jurisdiction of the High Court under Articles 226 and 227 is only to exercise judicial review over orders of such Tribunals, and going around the Tribunal would be tantamount to subverting the statutory framework of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985. The Bench made it clear that all factual and legal arguments raised before the Single Judge could be re-agitated before the KSAT.

In the Supreme Court, the appellants argued that they had been excluded from the final select list due to the direct result of the Single Judge’s prejudicial intervention and that the Division Bench had not granted substantive relief by simply remanding the case. But the Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the Division Bench. The Court noted that while the Single Judge acted in solicitude for the candidates, judicial discipline and respect for statutory hierarchy could not be dispensed with, as the Tribunal system itself is to deal with mass service grievances with efficiency.

Rejecting the appeals, the Supreme Court upheld the High Court’s order to instruct the parties to go to the KSAT with freedom to make all their objections there. The Court ruled that the High Courts should desist from hearing service and recruitment cases as courts of first instance, even where a massive number of candidates are involved.