No Relief Against State Without Impleading It: Supreme Court Sets Aside Lecturer's Absorption, Orders ₹10 Lakh Instead

Sudhir Hiwarkar was appointed a lecturer in 1990-91 in the commerce faculty of a college permitted to run on a no grant-in-aid basis (para 2). After a departmental enquiry he was terminated on 17.08.1999, when the University also allowed the faculty to close for want of students (para 2). The University and College Tribunal dismissed his appeal, but on 07.10.2015 the Bombay High Court at Nagpur quashed the termination, directed the Joint Director to include him in the surplus list for absorption, and directed the management to pay ₹10 lakh compensation (para 3). The State appealed, and the absorption direction was stayed (para 1).

The State of Maharashtra was never made a party to the writ petition; only the Joint Director was added, in 2015, nearly fifteen years later, yet the High Court issued a mandamus fastening continuing financial and administrative liability on the State (para 8). Following Ranjeet Mal, Jagtu and Chaman Lal, the Court held that the State is a necessary party and that representation through an officer does not dispense with impleading it (paras 9-10). Impleading an officer or department without arraying the State as a juristic entity under Article 300 renders a petition fundamentally defective when relief is sought against the exchequer (para 11), so the absorption direction could not stand (para 12). On merits too, a lecturer of a no grant-in-aid college is outside the surplus-absorption policy as clarified in the unchallenged 1997 corrigendum, and parity with another lecturer's absorption fails because Article 14 does not envisage negative equality (para 13). Yet Sudhir, out of work since 1999, retired on 30.11.2025, and the State too had not objected to its non-impleadment at the earliest (para 15).