Invalid recruitment notifications issued under struck-down rules cannot survive, and later protective directions do not cure the defect.

Recruitment notifications for Members of Consumer Disputes Redressal Commissions were invalid because they relied on eligibility and selection rules that had already been struck down as unconstitutional and had not been stayed; once those rules were effaced, any selection process founded on them lacked legal basis. A later Supreme Court protective order did not save the notifications, as it applied only to processes already initiated or substantially advanced before that order and did not cover later-issued notifications where recruitment had not commenced. The writ petitions were allowed, the notifications were quashed, and fresh action was directed in accordance with the governing recruitment directions.

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Issues: (i) Whether the notifications inviting applications for appointment of Members in the Consumer Disputes Redressal Commissions could stand when the governing recruitment rules had earlier been struck down as unconstitutional and no stay had been granted. (ii) Whether the later order of the Supreme Court in the suo motu proceedings protected the impugned notifications from challenge.

Issue (i): Whether the notifications inviting applications for appointment of Members in the Consumer Disputes Redressal Commissions could stand when the governing recruitment rules had earlier been struck down as unconstitutional and no stay had been granted.

Analysis: The recruitment notifications were issued after the relevant rules on eligibility and selection had already been declared ultra vires and had not been stayed. Once a Central rule is struck down as unconstitutional, it is treated as effaced from the statute book unless its operation is suspended. A subsequent notification issued in purported exercise of such invalid rules has no legal foundation and any selection process founded on it is equally vulnerable.

Conclusion: The impugned notifications could not be sustained and were liable to be quashed.

Issue (ii): Whether the later order of the Supreme Court in the suo motu proceedings protected the impugned notifications from challenge.

Analysis: The protective direction in the suo motu proceedings preserved processes already initiated or substantially advanced before that order. It did not extend to notifications issued later, especially where the recruitment process in the State had not commenced by the date of that order. The later notifications therefore did not obtain any shelter from that direction.

Conclusion: The suo motu order did not validate or save the impugned notifications.

Final Conclusion: The writ petitions succeeded, the impugned notifications were set aside, and the State was directed to proceed afresh in accordance with the governing directions applicable to the recruitment exercise.

Ratio Decidendi: A recruitment notification issued after the governing Central rule has been struck down as unconstitutional, and without any stay of that declaration, is invalid throughout the country; a later protective direction covering only pre-existing or advanced processes does not cure the defect.

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