Institute of Legal and Management Studies

The Supreme Court on Thursday (October 16) observed that matters falling within the jurisdiction of the tribunals should not be interfered with by the High Court upon invoking its Writ Jurisdiction.

A bench of Justices JK Maheshwari and Vijay Bishnoi dismissed a batch of appeals concerning the recruitment of 15,000 primary school teachers in Karnataka, affirming the Karnataka High Court's Division bench ruling, which had set aside the Single Judge decision entertaining the Writ petitions despite an alternative remedy to approach the Tribunal being available to the petitioners.

Noting that there's a mandatory requirement of first approaching the Karnataka State Administrative Tribunal (KSAT) in service disputes, in line with the Constitution Bench ruling in L. Chandra Kumar v. Union of India (1997), the Court said “where an efficacious alternate remedy is available, the High Court should not entertain a writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India in matters falling squarely within the domain of the Tribunals.”

At the heart of the case were married OBC women candidates whose applications were rejected when they produced income certificates of their fathers rather than their husbands. The Karnataka High Court's Single Judge had intervened, directing the State to consider them under OBC quota, but this move displaced 451 other candidates already in the provisional list. The Division Bench later overturned the Single Judge's order, citing a lack of jurisdiction, and relegated the matter to the KSAT, prompting the OBC women candidates to approach the Supreme Court.

Although the judgment authored by Justice Bishnoi emphasized that the existence of an alternative remedy would not denude the High Courts of their Writ Powers, but it should be used in cases such as violation of fundamental rights, breach of natural justice, lack of jurisdiction, or challenge to statutory vires.

The Appellant's tried to rely upon the decision of T.K. Rangarajan vs. Government of T.N. and Others, reported in (2003) 6 SCC 581 to contend that the Single Judge interference was justified looking towards to the large number of candidates (481) who were deprived of the recruitment drive. Distinguishing TK Tangarajan's case with the present case, the Court said it was the case where the High Court intervened in a mass termination of two lakh employees, holding that such an extraordinary exercise of writ jurisdiction was not comparable to the present case involving 481 candidates.

“However, the rejection of candidates on the basis of invalid certificates does not render them remediless so as to directly approach the High Court. The Tribunals have been well empowered to deal with such disputes as the court of first instance. Such situations under no circumstance can be deemed as an exceptional one to warrant the intervention of the High Court under its writ jurisdiction.”, the court said.

“In view of the aforesaid observations, the present case does not fall under the category of an exceptional circumstance as the issue is restricted merely to 481 candidates whose inclusion in the select list is allegedly illegal.”, the court held.

Accordingly, the appeal was dismissed, and the matter will now be heard by KSAT.

Cause Title: LEELAVATHI N. AND ORS. ETC. VERSUS THE STATE OF KARNATAKA AND ORS. ETC.

Citation : 2025 LiveLaw (SC) 1013

Click here to read/download the judgment

Appearance:

For Petitioner(s) :Mr. KV Dhananjay, Adv. Mr. Manish Tiwari , AOR Mr. Dheeraj SJ., Adv. Ms. Nikita Kumari, Adv. Mr. Vinay Navare, Sr. Adv. Mr. Chinmay Deshpande, Adv. Mr. Anirudh Sanganeria, AOR Mr. Abhishek Kumar Singh, AOR Mr. Venugopala Gowda, Sr. Adv. Mr. Balaji Srinivasan, AOR Mr. Vishwaditya Sharma, Adv. Mr. Rohan Dewan, Adv. Mr. Ashwin V. Kotemath, Adv. Mr. Harisha S.r., AOR Mr. Manish Kumar, AOR Mr. Mandeep Kalra, AOR Ms. Radhika Narula, Adv. Ms. Anushna Satapathy, Adv. Ms. Chitrangada Singh, Adv. Ms. Radhika Jalan, Adv. Ms. Widaphi Lyngdoh, Adv. Ms. Gauri Rajput, Adv. Mr. Vaibhav Yadav, Adv. Mr. Paras Mohan Sharma, Adv. Ms. Shefali Tripathi, Adv.

For Respondent(s) :Mr. Sanchit Garga, AOR Mr. Shashwat Jaiswal, Adv. Mr. Kunal Rana, Adv. Mr. Bhanu Pratap Singh, Adv. Mr. Devadatt Kamat, Sr. Adv. Mr. Nishant Patil, A.A.G. Mr. Harsh Pandey, Adv. Ms. Bhumi Agarwal, Adv. Mr. AMARISH, Adv. Mr. D. L. Chidananda, AOR Mr. Pai Amit, AOR Mr. Abhiyudaya Vats, Adv. Mr. Tathagata Dutta, Adv. Ms. Pankhuri Bharadwaj, Adv. Merin Francis, Adv. Mr. Avneesh Arputham, AOR Mr. Rishay Raj, Adv. Mr. Saurabh Agrawal, AOR Ms. Komal Mundhra, AOR Ms. Geeta Luthra, Sr. Adv. Mr. Anuj Singh, Adv. Ms. Janvi Desai, Adv. Ms. Shagufa Salim, AOR Ms. Shalini Singh, Adv. Ms. Spriha Jha, Adv. Mr. Ashwin Kumar Nair, AOR Ms. Aayushi Sharma, Adv. Mr. Wazid Hasan, Adv.