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Supreme Court of India
Service Law

No Right to Appointment From an Expired Reserve List; RPSC Could Appeal: Supreme Court

Published: · NyayVidhan · 3 min read

Allowing three appeals by the Rajasthan Public Service Commission, the Supreme Court held that a wait-listed candidate has no right of appointment once the reserve list has expired, and that the list's six-month life under the Rajasthan rules cannot be counted from the date a selected candidate fails to join (paras 90, 110). The Commission was a person aggrieved and could appeal although the State had not (para 76).

No Right to Appointment From an Expired Reserve List; RPSC Could Appeal: Supreme Court

Judgment Intelligence

Petition Allowed
Rajasthan Public Service Commission, Ajmer v. Yati Jain & Ors.
2026 INSC 64
Civil Appeal No. 273 of 2026 (arising out of SLP (Civil) No. 20366/2024) with Civil Appeal Nos. 274 and 275 of 2026
Court
Supreme Court of India
Date of Decision
15 January 2026
Bench
Justices Dipankar Datta and Augustine George Masih
Relevant Acts & Sections
Constitution of India — Articles 14, 226, 315, 320; Rajasthan Legal State and Subordinate Services Rules, 1981 — Rule 24; Rajasthan Agriculture Subordinate Service Rules, 1978 — Rule 21; Rajasthan High Court Ordinance, 1949 — Section 18
Final Outcome

Appeals allowed: the Division Bench judgments of 02.05.2024 and the Single Judges' orders set aside; the writ petitioners may not be appointed on any of the posts for which they competed; no costs (paras 120-122).

Source Supreme Court of India, www.sci.gov.in — judgment dated 15 January 2026 · Court's copy

View PDF View Full Judgment Text

Key holdings

  1. A Public Service Commission may appeal a direction to appoint a candidate it never recommended, even if the State does not (paras 74-76).
  2. The reserve list's six months run from forwarding of the original list, or at most the last recommendation, not from a non-joining (paras 97, 110).
  3. A writ petition filed after the reserve list has expired cannot found a mandamus for appointment (paras 103-105).
  4. Appointments made to others from an expired list support no parity claim, as there is no negative equality under Article 14 (paras 98, 102).
  5. A candidate who sues while the list is alive is not prejudiced if it expires while the case is pending (para 116).

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

Yati Jain and Vivek Kumar Meena stood on the Commission's reserve lists for Junior Legal Officer posts (advertised in 2019 and 2013), and Aakriti Saxena on its reserve list for Assistant Statistical Officer posts (advertised in 2020) (paras 5-9, 16-19, 24-26). Each claimed a post left vacant when a selected candidate did not join (paras 10-11, 19-21, 30-31, 109). Single Judges of the Rajasthan High Court directed the authorities to pick up or consider them from the reserve lists (paras 14, 22, 32). On 02.05.2024 a Division Bench dismissed the Commission's appeals, noting that the State had not appealed and that the petitioners had sued within six months of the non-joining (paras 3-4, 38-39).

Court's Findings

A person directly affected by a decision may appeal even if it does not require him to act (paras 65, 67). As the State can appoint only candidates the Commission recommends, a direction to appoint an unrecommended wait-listed candidate gave the Commission ‘a legal peg for a justiciable claim to hang on’, and the directions bound it as a respondent (paras 73-76). A selected candidate has no indefeasible right of appointment, so a wait-listed one cannot have a better right (paras 89-90). Rule 24 of the 1981 Rules and Rule 21 of the 1978 Rules allow reserve-list names to be recommended on requisition within six months of forwarding the original list; the period may stretch to the last recommendation, never to a later refusal to join (paras 92-93, 110). Departmental circulars could not override the rules (paras 95-96). All three petitions were filed after the lists had expired, so no subsisting right supported a mandamus (paras 97, 103-105). Recommendations from expired lists for others gave no claim to parity, as there is no negative equality (paras 98-102). Manoj Manu, Sat Pal, Ram Swarup Saroj and Purshottam did not help the petitioners (paras 111-119).

Legal Principle

A candidate on a waiting or reserve list has no indefeasible right of appointment and can claim only what the recruitment rules permit while the list is alive. Under the Rajasthan rules its six months run from forwarding of the original list, or at most the last recommendation, never from a later non-joining (paras 90, 108, 110).

NyayVidhan's view · Practice note

Why It Matters

For candidates on a Rajasthan Public Service Commission reserve list, timing decides the claim. The six months run from the forwarding of the original list, or at most from the last recommendation; a writ petition filed after that window fails even if a selected candidate later declines to join (paras 103-105, 110). A candidate who believes a vacancy should go to the next wait-listed name must reach the court while the list is alive (para 116). Commissions, for their part, may appeal directions to appoint candidates they never recommended (para 76). Compare Tej Prakash Pathak, where the Constitution Bench held that the rules of the game cannot be changed midway.

Editorial comment by the NyayVidhan Editorial Desk. It is not part of the Court's judgment and is not legal advice.

Precedents Relied Upon

  1. Gujarat State Dy. Executive Engineers' Assn. v. State of Gujarat 1994 Supp (2) SCC 591
    Relied Upon Discussed at ¶ 81, 82

    A waiting list is not a source of recruitment; a wait-listed candidate may claim appointment only if a selected candidate does not join within the list's life, and has no vested right beyond that; the Court extracted it and drew from it the key aspects of a waiting list.

  2. Shankarsan Dash v. Union of India (1991) 3 SCC 47
    Relied Upon Discussed at ¶ 89

    Constitution Bench: a candidate on a select or merit list has no indefeasible right of appointment even if a vacancy exists; the Court reasoned that a wait-listed candidate cannot have a better right.

  3. Jatinder Kumar v. State of Punjab (1985) 1 SCC 182
    Relied Upon Discussed at ¶ 72

    The Government may decline a Public Service Commission's recommendation but cannot appoint anyone it has not recommended; relied on to hold that the Commission was aggrieved by directions to appoint unrecommended candidates.

View all precedents (14)
  1. U.P. Public Service Commission v. Surendra Kumar (2019) 2 SCC 195
    Applied Discussed at ¶ 85, 97

    The life of a wait list runs from the Commission's initial recommendation for the substantive number of posts, not from a later recommendation for one post; applied in reckoning the six-month life of the 2019 reserve list.

  2. State of U.P. v. Harish Chandra (1996) 9 SCC 309
    Relied Upon Discussed at ¶ 36, 104

    No mandamus can issue to appoint candidates from a select list that had expired when they approached the High Court; illegal appointments made by the authority from an expired list confer no enforceable right.

  3. Jasbhai Motibhai Desai v. Roshan Kumar, Haji Bashir Ahmed (1976) 1 SCC 671
    Relied Upon Discussed at ¶ 60

    Tests for who is a 'person aggrieved' with locus standi; the Court drew on it in framing the conditions for maintaining an appeal and found the Commission had 'a legal peg for a justiciable claim to hang on'.

  4. A.P. Public Service Commission v. Baloji Badhavath (2009) 5 SCC 1
    Relied Upon Discussed at ¶ 61

    A Public Service Commission had locus standi to challenge a High Court judgment whose implementation required it to act; one of the precedents from which the Court derived the test of a person aggrieved.

  5. A.P. Public Service Commission v. P. Chandra Mouleesware Reddy (2006) 8 SCC 330
    Distinguished Discussed at ¶ 77, 78

    Relied on by the writ petitioners to deny the Commission's locus; held not applicable, as there the State had accepted its mistake and no fresh exercise was required, and it does not hold that a Commission has locus only when directed to hold a fresh selection.

  6. Chandigarh Administration v. Jagjit Singh (1995) 1 SCC 745
    Relied Upon Discussed at ¶ 99

    An order wrongly passed in another person's favour cannot be the basis of a writ compelling the authority to repeat the illegality; applied to reject the petitioners' parity claim.

  7. State of Odisha v. Anup Kumar Senapati (2019) 19 SCC 626
    Relied Upon Discussed at ¶ 100

    There is no concept of negative equality under Article 14; relied on to reject the claim based on recommendations made to others from expired reserve lists.

  8. Manoj Manu v. Union of India (2013) 12 SCC 171
    Distinguished Discussed at ¶ 36, 111, 112

    UPSC's refusal to forward reserve-list names on a specific requisition made within a reasonable time was arbitrary; distinguished because here names were recommended whenever requisitions were received.

  9. State of Jammu and Kashmir v. Sat Pal (2013) 11 SCC 737
    Explained Discussed at ¶ 36, 113, 114

    Relied on by the Single Judges for the view that a waiting list starts to operate after offers are issued; the Court found its paragraphs 11 and 16 not aligned and the relief granted under Article 142, and did not read it as a binding precedent.

  10. State of Uttar Pradesh v. Ram Swarup Saroj (2000) 3 SCC 699
    Distinguished Discussed at ¶ 36, 115, 116

    There the High Court was approached while the panel was alive and it expired during the litigation; relief relates back to the filing date in such a case, but the writ petitioners here sued after the lists had expired.

  11. Purshottam v. Chairman, M.S.E.B. (1996) 6 SCC 49
    Distinguished Discussed at ¶ 36, 117, 118, 119

    A duly selected candidate illegally kept out by an untenable decision, later reversed, cannot lose the post because the panel expired meanwhile; distinguished on its facts.

Statutory Provisions: Constitution of India Article 226 (Constitution of India) Article 14 (Constitution of India)
Topics: Negative Equality (Article 14) Intra-Court Appeals Locus Standi Right to Appointment from Select List Waiting List in Recruitment
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