This judgment does NOT order the resumption of the 2011 selection from the stage at which it was found tainted, and it does NOT grant back wages, notional appointment, or seniority from any earlier date. It directs only fresh recruitment for the vacant posts, with the limited age relaxation and pension-reckoning directions stated in the operative paragraph.
- Case
- Srinivasa T. & Ors. v. The State of Karnataka and Ors. Etc. Etc.
- Court
- Supreme Court of India
- Decision
- Citation
- 2026 INSC 1173
- Bench
- J.B. Pardiwala; K. Vinod Chandran
- Judgment by
- K. Vinod Chandran
- Case numbers
- Civil Appeals arising out of SLP(C) Nos. 21195-21196 of 2023
- Outcome
- Civil appeals allowed. The Karnataka Civil Services (Validation of Selection and Appointment of 2011 Batch Gazetted Probationers) Act, 2022 is held unconstitutional and set aside, along with the impugned High Court judgments; appointments made under the tainted recruitment will come to an end, and the State must notify fresh recruitment for the vacant Group A and B posts.
Validation Act unconstitutional; appointments to end
The Supreme Court has struck down the Karnataka Civil Services (Validation of Selection and Appointment of 2011 Batch Gazetted Probationers) Act, 2022, as unconstitutional, holding that a legislature cannot annul a final judgment of a constitutional court even by legislation.
Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran, with Justice Chandran writing, held in a non-reportable judgment delivered on 29 October 2026 that the Act, which revived a 2011 Commission recruitment cancelled for corruption and nepotism, nullified judgments of both courts upholding the cancellation.
The appointments made under the tainted recruitment will also come to an end, the Court observed. It directed fresh recruitment for the vacant Group A and B posts under the presently existing rules, with a one-time age relaxation for the untainted appointees, the six appellants and pending Tribunal petitioners, along with other eligible candidates.
A 2011 recruitment, a CID inquiry, and a cancelled selection
On 3 November 2011 the State notified recruitment to 362 Group A and B posts under the Karnataka Recruitment of Gazetted Probationers (Appointment by Competitive Examinations) Rules, 1997. Of 1,38,307 applicants, 91,667 took the preliminary examination, 6,211 reached the mains, and 1,090 were interviewed.
In 2013, on the Advocate General's advice and following an illegalities complaint, the State withheld the final select list pending a CID inquiry, which revealed gross manipulation, rampant corruption and blatant nepotism by Commission officials, and the entire recruitment was cancelled.
Selected candidates approached the Tribunal, which quashed the cancellation, but public interest litigations by aggrieved candidates, including the appellants, went in their favour, the State admitted the irregularities, and the High Court affirmed the cancellation. Three special leave petitions against that order were dismissed in Avinash C. v. State of Karnataka, Civil Appeal Nos. 3543-3555 of 2018. The findings included candidate-Commission call details, at least 566 candidates awarded identical interview marks, and a Commission video recorder replaced to destroy evidence. The Supreme Court refused to interfere with the annulment, rejecting segregation of tainted and untainted candidates.
After more than a decade, the State enacted the 2022 Validation Act. Unsuccessful candidates challenged it before the Tribunal on 15 March 2022, and one individual filed a writ petition on 23 March 2022. The High Court dismissed the writ petition by a cryptic order dated 21 April 2022, then rejected a challenge to the Tribunal's consequent refusal of an interim order on 23 August 2022. Both orders were impugned before the Supreme Court. Of the 362 selected, 46 were found tainted, and 191 were appointed under the Act, 14 of them tainted. Appellants' senior counsel argued that the Act nullified the Court's decision, since validation is permissible only where it removes a defect noticed by a constitutional court. The State's senior counsel candidly submitted that the legislation could not be supported at all, while counsel for the successful candidates feebly attempted to sustain it and vigorously canvassed equity.
Can a statute revive what courts have cancelled?
The issue was whether the legislature could, by a validation Act, restore a recruitment whose cancellation had been upheld by both courts, on the stated ground of relieving hardship to candidates who were themselves not accused. The Act's objects recorded that the Tribunal had first quashed the cancellation and directed appointments, that the candidates were not responsible and none were accused, with only the Chairman, members, staff and some middlemen chargesheeted, so penalising the candidates was unjustified.
Changing the basis is permitted; annulling a judgment is not
The Court held there could be no equity for the selected candidates, the selection having been declared tainted and the appointments made under what it called a stillborn legislation.
It relied on Medical Council of India v. State of Kerala, (2019) 13 SCC 185, treated as identical: illegally admitted students at two Kerala medical colleges were sought to be regularised by ordinance on hardship grounds.
Janapada Sabha, Chhindwara v. The Central Provinces Syndicate Ltd., (1970) 1 SCC 509, holds that a legislature may not render a judgment ineffective, though it may retrospectively amend an enactment to remove the defect on which a court invalidated it. In re: Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal, 1993 Supp (1) SCC 96, cautions that overriding a decision against the State would sound the death knell of the rule of law, while a general change of law by changing its basis is permitted, but setting aside an individual inter partes decision is not. S.T. Sadiq v. State of Kerala, (2015) 4 SCC 400, holds that the legislative function is to make law, not to declare what it shall be, and that a legislature may alter the basis of an earlier decision but cannot directly annul a final judgment.
Applying those principles, the Court held that the 2022 Act said nothing about the irregular manner of the cancellation, and that once both courts had upheld the cancellation, the legislature had no power to annul it and nullify their judgments.
No segregation, no equity, and a cursorily decided challenge
The Court recorded surprise and alarm at the impugned judgments: both the public interest litigation and the later writ petition had been cursorily dealt with, throwing to the winds every tenet of law by upholding an enactment clearly beyond the law-making authority's powers and bordering on the absurd. The public interest petition was allowed, transposing the appellants as petitioners, since a public interest litigant cannot withdraw on dominus litis without the Court's leave, and an unconnected individual's attempt to stultify a valid challenge could not block examination.
The untainted appointees' plea, that no candidate had been arrayed in the FIR or chargesheet and that Special Court cognizance had been set aside, did not convince the Court: absence of a trial did not entitle continuation of selections premised on the challenged legislation. Nor could the State's shifting stance, defending cancellation earlier and enacting revival later, support retention. Once the entire selection stood cancelled, there was no scope to segregate candidates on a CID report.
Fresh recruitment, one-time age relaxation, no back wages
The Court set aside the 2022 Act and both impugned judgments, allowed the appeals, and rejected the impleadment and intervention applications.
The Court directed fresh recruitment for the vacant Group A and B posts under the existing rules, with one-time age relaxation for the untainted appointees, the six appellants, and pending Tribunal petitioners, along with other eligible candidates.
If selected, their seniority runs only from the date of appointment, with no back wages and no notional appointment from an earlier date. For persons currently in service who are selected afresh, the period served earlier will be reckoned for pension and retirement benefits. The Court declined to resume the selection from the tainted stage because a decade and a half had passed.
BANTHRY ANALYSISFor law students: validation legislation and its limits
This judgment draws the line every student of constitutional law must be able to draw: a legislature may cure a defect a court identified, by changing the law so the earlier decision no longer bites, but it may not simply declare a decided case decided the other way. The test is whether the new law removes the judgment's legal basis or merely overrides its result.
Here the 2022 Act did the second: it recited hardship and set aside the annulment, without addressing the corruption and nepotism findings.
Hardship is real, and the Court acknowledges it by moulding relief: age relaxation, pension reckoning, and a fresh chance to compete. But hardship does not convert a tainted selection into a valid one, nor revive appointments under an unconstitutional statute.
READING PROMPTSQuestions for a closer reading
- Why may a legislature change the legal basis of a judgment but not directly annul the judgment itself?
- Why did the Court reject the argument that untainted candidates should be segregated from tainted ones and retained?
- Why did the Court direct fresh recruitment rather than resuming the 2011 selection from the interview stage?
