Supreme Court treats absent officials at appointment meeting as curable defect, not fatal
A division bench held that the absence of mandatory officials under Rule 3 was a curable, severable defect, directing the cooperative society to reconvene and reconsider the appointments.
The Supreme Court has set aside the invalidation of appointments made in 2014 to a Kurukshetra cooperative society, holding that the absence of three statutory officials from the appointment meeting was a curable irregularity rather than a defect that voided the entire recruitment. Justices Sanjay Karol and Nongmeikapam Kotiswar Singh allowed the appeal of Gaurav Mehla & Ors. against the State of Haryana, reasoning that the recruitment had three distinct stages and only the final stage was tainted. The Court directed the cooperative society to reconvene its Board of Directors within one month, this time with the mandatory officials present, to reconsider the appointments. The judgment turns on whether every breach of a recruitment procedure makes an appointment void in law, particularly where the defect was attributable to the authorities and not the candidates.
How the dispute reached the Court
The appellants were appointed in 2014 as Clerk-cum-Salesman and Peon-cum-Chowkidar at the Thanesar Cooperative Marketing-cum-Processing Society Ltd., Kurukshetra. The posts were filled after the Registrar, Cooperative Societies granted permission, an advertisement was issued on 11 July 2014, interviews were held on 11 August 2014, and the Board of Directors approved the appointments on 13 August 2014.
Two members of the society, Randhir Singh and Dharam Pal, challenged the appointments under Section 27 of the Haryana Cooperative Societies Act, 1984. Their central objection was that amended Rule 3 of the Primary Cooperative Marketing-cum-Processing Societies Ltd. Staff Service Rules, 2003 made the presence and concurrence of the Assistant Registrar Cooperative Societies, the Inspector Cooperative Societies and the District Manager, HAFED compulsory at the appointment meeting. None of the three attended the meeting on 13 August 2014.
The Additional Registrar Cooperative Societies (Stores) set aside the appointments by order dated 6 June 2017, finding violations of Rule 3 and Rule 14(a). The Additional Chief Secretary affirmed that order on 29 September 2017. The Single Judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court dismissed the appellants’ writ petition on 22 April 2024, and the Division Bench affirmed on 29 July 2025, while granting liberty to the appellants to apply afresh with age relaxation.
What the Court held on Rule 3
The Court accepted that the cooperative society partakes the colour of a public entity and that appointments to it are governed by the Service Rules, 2003. It identified three mandatory norms for public employment: issuance of a proper advertisement, a fair and transparent selection process, and appointment by the competent authority.
On the first stage, the Court found the advertisement valid. Though it did not state a last date, it required applications within 21 days, removing any ambiguity. The challenge that the advertisement appeared in the Delhi edition of The Indian Express failed because there was no allegation that it was not circulated in Haryana, and no forum below had recorded any defect in the advertisement.
On the second stage, the Court noted there was no allegation of any ineligible candidate being appointed, no fraud or manipulation in the interview, and no complaint from any unsuccessful candidate. The challenge came only from members, not competing applicants.
Why the defect was treated as curable
The Court held that the requirement under Rule 3 making the presence and concurrence of the officials compulsory served a salutary purpose, those officials being the best placed to scrutinise and verify the recruitment process. But it concluded that an infraction of Rule 3 “cannot render the entire recruitment process illegal” where the process did not otherwise suffer from any fundamental error.
The reasoning rested on severability. The Court treated the third stage as separable from the first two. A defect at the third stage, it held, would not vitiate the earlier phases, and rectifying it did not involve the candidates. The Court found the defect curable rather than fatal, noting the appellants had no role in the composition of the meeting and had served for more than ten years, albeit under the interim protection of the High Court.
Order
The Court allowed the appeal and set aside the Division Bench judgment dated 29 July 2025 in LPA No. 1259 of 2024 (O&M). It directed the cooperative society to reconvene a meeting of the Board of Directors within one month, with the Assistant Registrar Cooperative Societies, the Inspector Cooperative Societies and the District Manager, HAFED present, to take a fresh decision on the third stage of the recruitment.
The reconvened board was barred from reopening the first two phases. It could not re-examine the adequacy of the advertisement or the conduct of the interview. Its task was limited to examining whether the appellants met the essential qualifications, suffered no disqualification, were the candidates recommended on the basis of the interview, and whether any more meritorious eligible candidates had been ignored.
The appellants had been removed from service on 19 August 2025. The Court directed that if they were found eligible and not disqualified on fresh reconsideration, they were to be re-appointed and their past service counted for all purposes, but without arrears of pay or allowance for the period they were out of service. Parties were to bear their own costs.