Judgment Intelligence
Petition AllowedKailash Prasad v. Union Public Service Commission & Ors.
Civil Appeal No. 13500 of 2025 (arising out of Special Leave Petition (Civil) No. 26487 of 2023) with Civil Appeals arising out of Special Leave Petition (Civil) Nos. 700 and 10458 of 2024
- Court
- Supreme Court of India
- Date of Decision
- 10 November 2025
- Bench
- Justice J.K. Maheshwari and Justice Vijay Bishnoi
Final Outcome
Appeals allowed: the Delhi High Court's judgment set aside and the CAT order restored; the appellants' results to be declared and, if found in merit, appointments made to the seats kept vacant within two months of the order's upload (para 13).
Key holdings
- Clause 9(b) fixed eligibility 'in every respect' on the closing date for online applications (paras 7, 9).
- UPSC's note-sheets gave no reason for keeping the 13.05.2021 cut-off (paras 10-11).
- Candidates with ten years' experience by 29.07.2021 were eligible (para 11).
- An advertisement deactivated the next day, with no selection under it, cannot fix eligibility (para 12).
- Results to be declared and those found in merit appointed to the vacant seats within two months (para 13).
Case explainer by NyayVidhan: an account of this judgment and the law it laid down, not the court's text. The judgment itself is the authoritative version.
Brief Facts
UPSC's indicative advertisement for 363 posts of Principal in the Delhi Directorate of Education gave 13.05.2021 as the last date, with details in a separate detailed advertisement; because of COVID-19 it was deferred and nothing was available online (paras 3, 6). On 10.07.2021 UPSC re-notified the detailed advertisement, requiring ten years' teaching experience and extending the last date to 29.07.2021, while its notice said the earlier eligibility conditions remained unchanged (paras 3-4, 7). The appellants, who reached ten years between the two dates, were excluded; 13 seats were kept vacant. The CAT ruled for them on 15.05.2023, and the Delhi High Court reversed it on 01.11.2023 (paras 2, 5).
Court's Findings
The Court found a clear divergence between the notice of 10.07.2021, which kept the earlier eligibility conditions, and Clause 9(b) of the detailed advertisement, which made the closing date for online applications the date for determining eligibility in every respect (para 8). On a plain reading of Clause 9(b), eligibility had to be judged on the closing date, and UPSC's contrary argument was fallacious (para 9). The note-sheets UPSC produced on the Court's queries showed only that the advertisement was deferred for COVID-19 and later re-published; they gave no reason for retaining 13.05.2021 as the cut-off (paras 10-11). Since the detailed advertisement could not be uploaded after the initial one, candidates who acquired ten years' experience between the two closing dates were eligible and could not be disqualified (para 11). The High Court had accepted UPSC's stand when the necessary material was not on record, and there was no justification for judging eligibility by an advertisement deactivated the next day, under which the selection never began (para 12).
Legal Principle
Where a recruitment advertisement is deferred and re-notified with a later closing date, and its own clause fixes eligibility on the closing date, candidates eligible by that later date cannot be excluded by relying, without recorded reasons, on the earlier advertisement that was withdrawn before any selection began (paras 8-12).
