In Brief
Junior Engineers from the Mechanical and Civil streams of the Department of Minor Irrigation challenged their seniority list, which had been prepared by placing three separate select lists from different engineering streams sequentially based on the date they were received by the department. The Supreme Court held that despite a single examination and selection process, the department had wrongly prepared the seniority list by stream and date of receipt rather than on combined inter se merit of all candidates across all three streams. This was arbitrary and violated statutory rules and constitutional guarantees under Articles 14 and 16. The appellants' challenge was not barred by delay because the methodology was not disclosed in earlier orders. The Court allowed the appeal and directed preparation of a fresh seniority list in accordance with the statutory rules.
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