NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has said the north-eastern states, which is a confluence of people belonging to a mosaic of tribes, castes and ethnicity, must foster diversity and inclusivity in public services by ensuring representation to candidates from hills and historically backward classes.
The court, which is still dealing with cases relating to Kuki-Meitei ethnic clashes in Manipur which had erupted in May 2023 over apprehensions of grant of scheduled tribe status to Meiteis, last week upheld BJP government’s 2016 decision to cancel Tarun Gogoi-led Congress government’s poll-eve interview-based recruitment of constables for Assam Forest Protection Force as no one from 16 districts of the state got selected.
Setting aside concurrent judgments of single judge and division bench of the Gauhati HC directing the state to give appointment to the 104 selected candidates, a bench of Justices Dipankar Datta and Manmohan said two reasons – the selections being only based on interview which is prone to manipulation and non-selection of any candidate belonging to 16 districts – weigh in favour of cancellation of the examination.
Writing the judgment, Justice Datta said, “Fostering diversity and inclusivity in public service, ensuring that there is representation from almost all the districts including from the hills and historically backward classes without, however, compromising merit should be the commitment of all govts of the north-Eastern states of the country.”
The bench expressed surprise that though the notification for recruitment was published in 2014, the selection process was carried out in 2016. Immediately after the change in government, the Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (PCCF) wrote to the government complaining that the process was not fair and smacked of nepotism.
Finding that the selection process had “a coat of discernible taint suggesting impropriety and bias”, the bench said, “The decision taken by the successor Government of cancelling the process initiated by the earlier govt cannot be said to be disproportionate and incommensurate with the illegalities/irregularities detected.”
“We, thus, unhesitatingly arrive at the conclusion that based on the note of the PCCF dated 4th July, 2016 and the recommendation made by him for cancellation of the select list, the decision of the Government to approve the said note and, thereby, cancel the select list did not stand vitiated to attract its invalidation either by application of the doctrine of Wednesbury unreasonableness or proportionality,” the bench said. While directing the state to fill the 104 posts of constables through a transparent process.