Jabalpur (Madhya Pradesh): The Supreme Court has set aside the Madhya Pradesh High Court’s decision on the posting of police constables on the grounds of their ranks in the state constable recruitment examination conducted in 2017-18.
During a hearing of the case on Monday, the court directed the state government to post the reserved category candidates according to their ranks on the merit list.
Several candidates filed petitions in the Jabalpur High Court, as the top scorers in the reserved category were given lower ranks in many battalions.
The candidates getting higher ranks should have been posted to the District Police Force or to the Special Police Force.
The then Chief Justice Hemant Gupta and Justice Vijay Kumar Shukla dismissed the petition on April 20, 2018 and upheld the appointments made by the department.
After that, a candidate, Praveen Kumar Kurmi, challenged the High Court’s decision in the Supreme Court.
During the first hearing on February 22 this year, a division bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice MM Sundaresh held the Jabalpur High Court’s decision to be contrary to the law.
The apex court also gave reference to several cases including Indra Shahani and Union of India 1992.
The court heard the case on Monday and ordered that the candidates, with higher ranks on the merit of the reserved category, should be posted accordingly.
The Police Department of the state had recruited 14,088 posts of constable in 2017-18.
Special advocate of the MP government, Rameshwar Singh Thakur said, “The Supreme Court has given clear instructions to the state government by referring to the earlier decisions. Failure to implement the rules related to reservation in letter and spirit is a criminal act under section 6 of the Reservation Act 1994.”
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