Agartala, Aug 29: The Supreme Court has quashed Tripura’s decision to scrap midway the recruitment of 506 Enrolled Followers in the Tripura State Rifles, calling it an “arbitrary exercise of power” that unlawfully changed “the rules of the game after the game had begun.”
The ruling, authored by Justice J.K. Maheshwari, set aside the Tripura High Court’s 2019 judgment, which had upheld the state’s cancellation orders. The apex court held that the recruitment process, initiated in 2016 and nearly completed by mid-2017, was conducted strictly under the Tripura State Rifles Act, 1983 and its Recruitment Rules of 1984.
According to the judgment, advertisements had been issued in September 2016 for 372 posts under the inside-state quota and 134 posts under the outside-state quota. Recruitment rallies, physical tests, written examinations and interviews were duly conducted, and “merit lists were prepared and character verification was underway” when the process was suddenly halted.
Reportedly, the change came after a new government took office in March 2018. On March 14 that year, the administration issued an “Abeyance Memorandum” keeping all ongoing recruitments in suspension. Later, on June 5, 2018, it introduced a New Recruitment Policy (NRP) that abolished interviews for Group-D posts. Subsequently, on August 20, 2018, a “Cancellation Memorandum” was issued, scrapping the Tripura State Rifles recruitment along with other pending processes.
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However, the Supreme Court observed that “executive instructions cannot override statutory rules.” The bench noted that the TSR Act and Rules already prescribed tests, including interviews, for the Enrolled Followers’ posts. “Once the recruitment process was carried out under the Act and Rules, deviation was not permitted by way of executive instructions,” the Court said.
Moreover, the Court stressed that the New Recruitment Policy itself was meant to apply prospectively. “Clause (2) of the NRP makes it clear that recommendations will be applicable with prospective effect only,” the judgment pointed out. Therefore, applying the NRP to an ongoing recruitment where interviews had already been conducted was “contrary to law.”
The judgment also touched on the principle of legitimate expectation, observing that while candidates do not acquire an absolute right to appointment merely by selection, they do have a “legitimate expectation of completion of the recruitment process in a fair and non-arbitrary manner.”
Meanwhile, the state’s plea that the cancellation was in the larger public interest was dismissed. The Court said, “Merely citing larger public interest without demonstrating how it would be served is not sufficient to cancel an almost completed recruitment.”
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In conclusion, the apex court quashed both the March 14, 2018, Abeyance Memorandum and the August 20, 2018, Cancellation Memorandum insofar as they related to the Tripura State Rifles recruitment. It directed the state to “finalise and complete the process within two months” under the statutory Act and Rules.
Therefore, the verdict has restored hope for hundreds of candidates who had cleared the rigorous recruitment tests nearly eight years ago, and it sets a precedent ensuring that Tripura’s recruitment practices remain bound by law rather than shifting executive policies.