Delhi High Court: While hearing an application challenging the order dated 15-10-2025 (‘impugned order’), wherein the Central Administrative Tribunal (‘Tribunal’) had allowed the petitioner’s application regarding her recruitment in the National Institute of Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases (‘Institute’), the Division Bench of Anil Kshetarpal, J* and Amit Mahajan, J, held that an error in the recruitment notice did not create a vested or enforceable right to appointment in the respondent. Accordingly, the Court set aside the impugned order.
Background
The Institute had issued a recruitment notice for 10 posts of HMTS Dietary (Kitchen Staff). As per the requisition submitted by the Institute, the category-wise breakup of the posts was as follows: 5 posts under the Unreserved (UR) category, 3 under Other Backward Classes (OBC), 1 under Scheduled Tribe (ST), and 1 under Economically Weaker Section (EWS). No post was requisitioned or sanctioned for the Scheduled Caste (SC) category.
The recruitment process had been conducted through Hindustan Life Care Limited, an outsourced agency. Due to an inadvertent error on the part of the agency, the recruitment notice had incorrectly indicated that 3 posts were reserved for the SC category.
The respondent, belonging to the SC category, had applied pursuant to the said advertisement and emerged as the topper in the written examination. An offer of appointment had been issued to her. Subsequently, it was discovered that no vacancy existed for the SC category and that the respondent was overage for consideration under the UR category. Consequently, the offer of appointment had been withdrawn.
Aggrieved thereby, the respondent had filed an application before the Tribunal. Despite the Institute filing an affidavit clarifying that no SC vacancy existed, the Tribunal had allowed the application vide the impugned order. The said order was challenged by the Institute in the instant application.
Analysis, Law and Decision
The Court held that the erroneous inclusion of SC vacancies in the recruitment notice did not confer any vested or enforceable right upon the respondent. In the absence of any sanctioned vacancy for the SC category and considering that the respondent was overage for the UR category, the Court found that she was not eligible for appointment.
The Court observed that the mistake in the recruitment notice was attributable to the outsourced agency and did not amount to any change in the rules of recruitment. The respondent was also held not entitled to age relaxation in the absence of a valid reserved category vacancy.
The Court further held that no claim for appointment could be sustained solely on the basis of an inadvertent error in the recruitment advertisement.
Accordingly, the Court set aside the impugned order passed by the Tribunal.
[National Institute of Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases v. Shweta, 2026 SCC OnLine Del 298, decided on 20-1-2026]
*Judgment Authored by: Justice Anil Kshetarpal
Advocates who appeared in this case:
For the Petitioner: Ajay Pal Singh Kullar, Jasbir Bidhuri, Prakhar Khanna, Advocates
For the Respondent: Suresh Sharma, Usha Sharma, Abhishek Saket, SPCG, Amit Acharya, GP, Abhigyan, Reya Paul, Nidhi Singh, Advocates