Selection Scales Restored and Recovery From Retired Employee Barred on Parity With Earlier Order: Rajasthan High Court

The petitioner challenged orders dated 17.06.2021 that set aside the earlier orders granting him the second and third selection scales, and an order dated 13.07.2021 seeking recovery from him after he had attained the age of superannuation (para 1). Other employees facing similar action had succeeded before the Rajasthan Civil Services Appellate Tribunal, which quashed the withdrawal of their selection scales and barred recovery (para 2). The State's writ petition against one such order, State of Rajasthan & Ors. v. Chauthi Ram, was dismissed by a co-ordinate Bench on 19.05.2026 (para 2.1). The petitioner said his case was at par (para 2.2).

The Court recorded that the State, while opposing the petition, could not dispute that similar orders in other cases had been challenged by the State Government and that those writ petitions had been dismissed by a co-ordinate Bench, nor that the petitioner's case was similar to Chauthi Ram's (para 3). On that footing it found no reason to take a different view and, following the co-ordinate Bench, allowed the petition (para 4). The order gives no separate reasons of its own on the merits; the reasons are those of the earlier order, which it quoted (para 2.1). In that order, the co-ordinate Bench had noted that that employee's later promotion as Assistant Driller contradicted the Department's stated basis for withdrawing his selection grade, and that the Department could not show compliance with natural justice or a hearing before the withdrawal; it found the Tribunal's order consistent with the Supreme Court's decisions in Rafiq Masih (White Washer) and Jagdish Prasad Singh (para 2.1).