Public employment and negative equality: appointments without fair recruitment cannot be validated by later regularisation or parity claims.

Public employment appointments made without advertisement, employment exchange notification, or a fair selection process offend Articles 14 and 16 and the statutory notification requirement under the Employment Exchanges Act. Such appointments do not acquire validity merely because the appointees continued in service or later regularisation was alleged. Article 14 also does not permit negative equality: a person cannot claim relief because others may have wrongly received similar benefit. The text states that regularisation cannot cure a void appointment, and parity with illegal appointments in other cases cannot create an enforceable right.

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Issues: (i) Whether the respondents' initial appointments on Class IV posts were illegal for having been made without advertisement, employment exchange intimation, or any fair selection process, and whether such appointments could be sustained or regularised. (ii) Whether the respondents could claim reinstatement or parity on the basis that similarly situated persons had been granted relief in other cases, or on the basis of alleged regularisation.

Issue (i): Whether the respondents' initial appointments on Class IV posts were illegal for having been made without advertisement, employment exchange intimation, or any fair selection process, and whether such appointments could be sustained or regularised.

Analysis: Public employment must conform to the constitutional mandate of equality of opportunity. Appointment to public posts ordinarily requires open notice so that eligible candidates may compete, and the statutory scheme under Section 4 of the Employment Exchanges (Compulsory Notification of Vacancies) Act, 1959 requires vacancies to be notified to the employment exchange. Appointments made without advertisement, without requisition to the employment exchange, and without a fair selection process offend Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India. The material on record did not show any lawful recruitment process, while the inquiry findings indicated large-scale irregularities and non-maintenance or disappearance of appointment records. Such appointments could not be treated as valid merely because the appointees had continued for some time or because an alleged later regularisation was asserted.

Conclusion: The initial appointments were illegal and could not be sustained; the claim to reinstatement and consequential benefits was rejected.

Issue (ii): Whether the respondents could claim reinstatement or parity on the basis that similarly situated persons had been granted relief in other cases, or on the basis of alleged regularisation.

Analysis: Article 14 embodies positive equality and does not permit negative equality. An illegality or unwarranted benefit granted to others cannot be used to compel repetition of the illegality. The High Court was required to examine the respondents' own entitlement on law and facts, rather than rely on orders passed in other matters. Alleged regularisation could not cure an appointment that was void ab initio, and earlier orders in favour of others could not create a right to identical illegal relief. The Division Bench erred in refusing to examine the legality of the appointments merely because similar appeals had been dismissed in other cases.

Conclusion: The respondents could not claim relief on the basis of parity or alleged regularisation; the plea of negative equality was rejected.

Final Conclusion: The High Court's orders were unsustainable because they had protected appointments made in violation of the constitutional scheme of public employment, and the writ petition was liable to be dismissed.

Ratio Decidendi: Appointments to public posts made without adherence to the constitutional and statutory requirements of fair recruitment confer no enforceable right, and Article 14 cannot be invoked to perpetuate or replicate an illegality by claiming parity with others who may have been wrongly benefited.

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