UPSC qualified candidates have no right to choose cadre, Supreme Court

The Supreme Court held in its verdict that a candidate whose name appears in the UPSC exam's merit list does not have the right to choose his/her cadre as they appear for an All India service.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court held in its verdict that a candidate whose name appears in the UPSC exam's merit list does not have the right to choose his/her cadre as they appear for an All India service. "Consistent view of this court has been that even if the name of the candidate appears in the merit list, such candidate has no right to claim appointment," ruled the court.

The bench comprising of Justice Hemant Gupta and Justice V Ramasubramanian was hearing the petition of centre challenging the Kerela High Court order wherein it had asked the government to grant Kerela cadre to IAS officer A Shainamol. Shainamol had contended her home state Kerela was not consulted before granting her Himachal Pradesh cadre.

The top court ruled that a state has "no discretion of allocation of a cadre at its whims and fancies" and the HC should have refrained from interfering in the matter in the first place.

"The applicant was allocated to the state of Himachal Pradesh and there was a consent duly given by the Himachal Pradesh for an allocation to that state. In fact, no consultation was required to be carried out in respect of the applicant with Kerala. Therefore, the mandate of the cadre rules is satisfied when the consultation was made with the state to which allocation was made," held the court.

Referring to an earlier judgement of SC in a similar matter, the judges said that the candidate does have a right to consider his/her appointment as an IAS but can not choose cadre and it is an incidence of service.

A Shainmol was an OBC candidate but had qualified under the general category and did not avail of relaxation. Court also held that as she had not availed any relaxation she had to be treated as a general category candidate.

Read: Indian travel blogger among 2 killed in Mexico's Tulum