Why Kerala High Court refused to stop state public service commission from filling vacancy ‘lost’ decades ago

The Kerala High Court was hearing a plea of a candidate against the tribunal order. (Image generated using AI)

The petitioner had challenged the conversion that originally reserved for the Ezhava/Billava/Thiyya (E/B/T) community, to the Latin Catholic/Anglo Indian (LC/AI) community.

“The supervisory jurisdiction cannot be exercised to correct all errors of the order or judgment of a lower court or tribunal, acting within the limits of its jurisdiction,” the court observed on January 31.

Findings

• The correctional jurisdiction under Article 227 can be exercised only in a case where the order or judgment of a lower court or tribunal has been passed in grave dereliction of duty or in flagrant abuse of fundamental principles of law or justice.
• No interference under Article 227 is called for, unless the high court finds that the trial court or tribunal has committed manifest error, or the reasoning is palpably perverse or patently unreasonable, or where there has been gross and manifest failure of justice, or the basic principles of natural justice have been flouted.
• There is no illegality or arbitrariness in these actions on the part of the KPSC.
• If the contention of the petitioner is accepted, it will be the continuation of the pre-amended system of passing over.
• The stand of the respondents is that the KPSC was not converting any reservation to another, as averred by the petitioner.
• It was actually restoring the lost turn to the original community, which was passed over previously in the year 1995.
• Kerala state and subordinate service rules clearly entrusts the KPSC to compensate all pending, uncompensated turns of vacancies which were passed over, due to non-availability of a particular reserved community as on February 2, 2006.
• There is no illegality or arbitrariness in these actions on the part of the KPSC.

Background

• The petitioner, a candidate in the ranked list for the post of Medical Officer (Marma), challenged the KPSC’s conversion that was originally reserved for the E/B/T community to the LC/AI community.
• The petitioner belongs to the Thiyya community.
• According to the petitioner, turn 28 in the reservation roster as per annexure of the Kerala state and subordinate service rules (KS and SSR), part II, belongs to the Ezhava/Billava/Thiyya communities and thus, based on the ranked list, she is entitled to be appointed to that turn.
• The petitioner alleged that the KPSC arbitrarily converted that turn to the Latin Catholic/Anglo Indian community, stating that it is used to compensate the LC/AI community for an E/B/T candidate appointed in 1995 to a turn reserved for LC/AI candidates as per the pre-amended rule 15 of the KS and SSR.