The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court quashed the termination of 26 general-category junior engineers recruited by the Uttar Pradesh Jal Nigam in 2013, ruling that employees cannot be made to suffer for administrative errors in the recruitment process.
There were no allegations that they had secured their appointments through fraud, misrepresentation or manipulation. Justice Irshad Ali, hearing petitions filed by Rakesh Pratap Singh and 25 other engineers, held that the petitioners had been selected through a regular process by the competent authority against sanctioned posts.
“There can be no dispute with the proposition that statutory reservation is required to be faithfully implemented. However, the implementation of reservation must itself be in accordance with the statutory scheme,” the bench observed.
The court said while the reservation policy must be implemented, authorities must also follow the law while doing so.
What is the UP Jal Nigam recruitment case
Despite the committee’s recommendation, the services of 73 general-category junior engineers, including Rakesh Pratap Singh, were terminated on December 2, 2014. The affected employees challenged the decision before the High Court, which quashed the terminations on December 18, 2014, and directed the Jal Nigam to reconsider the matter. The authorities nevertheless proceeded in a manner inconsistent with those directions. The court also criticised the subsequent proceedings, observing that the show-cause notice issued to the engineers appeared to treat termination as a foregone conclusion. It stressed that a show-cause notice cannot be an empty formality and that authorities must genuinely consider an employee’s response and address the objections raised.
In its latest ruling, the court noted that the 2014 judgment had never been challenged before a higher court and therefore remained binding on the Jal Nigam.
The engineers had questioned, among other things, the category-wise selection process, the applicability of reservation rules, the Backward Classes Commission’s jurisdiction, the availability of vacancies and the effect of the earlier High Court ruling.
