Chhattisgarh High Court: a reservation framework already struck down can't be used for fresh recruitment

Candidates for teaching posts challenged a recruitment advertisement of 4 May 2023 because it applied a reservation roster traced to a 2012 notification that the same High Court had already declared unconstitutional in a 2022 judgment, a ruling now under appeal before the Supreme Court. The State argued it was protected by the Supreme Court's interim order of 1 May 2023, which had permitted recruitment and promotion to proceed pending the appeal. The High Court held that the Supreme Court's order only allowed the process to continue subject to the final outcome of the pending appeal; it was not a declaration that the 2012 notification or its reservation rosters were valid, and executive authorities cannot treat an already-invalidated reservation framework as an independent, unconditional basis for appointments merely because a higher court has permitted the process to go on.

The Court therefore quashed the advertisement to the extent it relied on that framework, while declining to annul appointments or promotions already made, since the Supreme Court's order had expressly protected the process from being halted. Instead, it directed that every future appointment or promotion order arising from the recruitment must expressly record that it is subject to the outcome of the pending Supreme Court proceedings, so that no appointee can later claim an indefeasible right that would defeat the final verdict on the reservation's validity.