NEW DELHI: A decade after they were appointed judicial officers in Himachal Pradesh after cracking the exam, the Supreme Court has held their appointment was bad in law as they were recruited over and above the vacancies which were advertised but refrained from useating them from judicial service saying that they were not at fault and quashing their appointment would not be in public interest.A bench of Justices C T Ravikumar and Sudhanshu Dhulia said that recruitment could be done only for vacancies that have been advertised and not beyond that, and the authority was at fault for recruiting them.

“To sum up the position of law as it stands, once clear and anticipated vacancies have been advertised, appointments can only be made on these vacancies.

Vacancies which could not be anticipated before the date of advertisement, or the vacancies which did not exist at the time of advertisement, are the vacancies for the future i.e., next selection process,” the bench said..In this particular case advertisement was issued in 2013 by the Himachal Pradesh Public Service Commission inviting applications from candidates against eight vacancies for the post of Civil Judge (Junior Division).

Out of the total eight vacancies, six were “existing vacancies” and two were “anticipated vacancies”.

Two additional names were declared qualified beyond eight posts which were advertised.