Reserved Category Candidates Can Claim General Seats On Merit Despite Availing Relaxation If Rules Permit: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Monday (March 23) observed that reserved category candidates who avail relaxation in a qualifying examination can still be considered for general category posts if they secure higher merit in the final selection stage, if the relevant rules permit it.

Providing relief to the TET candidates, a bench of Justices PS Narasimha and Alok Aradhe has set aside the Bombay High Court Aurangabad bench judgment, which held that the candidates who availed relaxation could not migrate to the general category.

The Court observed that the Recruitment Rules framed by the State Government through the Government Resolution dated 13.02.2013 do not prohibit migration of reserved category candidates who have availed relaxation in the qualifying examination to the open category. Therefore, denying such meritorious candidates the opportunity to migrate to the open category would be unjustified.

“The appellants who admittedly are more meritorious than the last selected candidate under the general category, cannot be excluded from consideration under the general category, in the absence of any express prohibition in the Recruitment Rules/notification. The relaxation in qualifying criteria only affects eligibility and not merit and migration is permissible in the absence of any prohibition.”, the court observed.

The dispute arose from teacher recruitment in Maharashtra, governed by the Right to Education framework. Candidates were required to first clear the Teachers Eligibility Test (TET), followed by the Teachers Aptitude and Intelligence Test (TAIT), which determined final merit.

While general category candidates needed 60% marks in TET, reserved category candidates were granted a 5% relaxation, allowing them to qualify with 55%.

The controversy began when several reserved category candidates, who had availed this relaxation, performed exceptionally well in TAIT and scored higher than the last selected general category candidate. Despite this, they were denied inclusion in the open category merit list.

Following the dismissal of the Writ Petitions seeking inclusion in the open category by the High Court, the candidates filed an appeal before the Supreme Court.

Setting aside the High Court's decision, a judgment authored by Justice Aradhe emphasized that “whether a reserved category candidate, who has availed of relaxed standard can migrate to and be recruited against unreserved category seats, depends solely on specific recruitment rules or employment notification.”

For instance, the Court referred to two of its recent rulings in Union of India v. Sajib Roy (2025) and Union of India v. G. Kiran (2026), where a migration was denied because the recruitment rules contained express prohibitions.

In contrast, since the Recruitment Rules do not expressly prohibit the candidates availing relaxation in the qualifying examination to be selected in an open category upon securing higher position in merit, thus it was impermissible for the Respondent-authorities to deny their selection in an open category, the Court observed.

Further, the Court distinguished the present case from Pradeep Kumar v. Government of NCT of Delhi (2019) 10 SCC 120, being relied upon by the Respondent, noting that in that case, candidates had failed to meet essential eligibility criteria. In contrast, in the present case, the Appellants-candidates met the eligibility requirements under validly granted relaxation, and were permitted to migrate to an open category, which was not the case in Pradeep Kumar.

“…the decision of this Court in Pradeep Kumar has no application to the obtaining factual matrix for the reason that decision in Pradeep Kumar (supra) is an authority for the proposition that in case candidates belonging to reserved category do not fulfil the essential eligibility condition, they cannot be permitted to be appointed against the general vacancies.”, the court observed.

The following legal principles was culled out: -

"(i) A concession/relaxation in a qualifying examination merely enables entry of a candidate into the zone of consideration and cannot be treated as relaxation in the standard prescribed for qualifying the written examination if such relaxation does not affect the merit which has to be determined solely on the basis of performance in the main examination and the interview, if any.

(ii) A relaxation or concession in the qualifying examination merely creates a level playing field where no concession or relaxation is granted in the ultimate selection and the same is solely made on the basis of inter se merit.

(iii) If a candidate belonging to a reserved category, does not fulfil the essential eligibility criteria prescribed for a selection, he/she cannot be permitted to migrate to an open category.

(iv) Migration of a reserved category candidate who has availed of a concession/relaxation in qualifying examination depends on the Recruitment Rules or the employment notification. If such Recruitment Rules or employment notification permits such migration, the same is permissible.

(v) Such migration shall also be permissible if the Recruitment Rules or employment notification are either silent or do not expressly prohibit it."

“The respondents shall include in the merit list, those appellants who have secured 30 marks higher than the last selected candidate in the general category.”, the court ordered.

Resultantly, the appeal was allowed.

Cause Title: CHAYA & ORS. ETC. VERSUS THE STATE OF MAHARASHTRA & ANR. ETC.

Citation : 2026 LiveLaw (SC) 281

Click here to read the judgment

For Petitioner(s) :Mr. P.S. Patwalia, Sr. Adv. Mr. R.k. Singh, Adv. Mrs. Neeraj Singh, Adv. Mr. Tom Joseph, AOR Mr. B. Ravindra Kumar, Adv. Mr. Kumar Gaurav, Adv. Ms. Muskan Singh, Adv.

For Respondent(s) :Mr. Shyam Mehta, Sr. Adv. Mr. Varad Kilor, Adv. Mr. Siddharth Dharmadhikari, Adv. Mr. Aaditya Aniruddha Pande, AOR Mr. Shrirang B. Varma, Adv. Mr. Kuldeep Singh Kuchaliya, Adv. Ms. Richa Tripathi, Adv. Mr. Aman Rastogi, Adv. Mr. Sanjay Rastogi, AOR Dr. Linto K.b., AOR Mr. Praveen Pathak, Adv. Mr. Duvvada Ramesh, Adv. Ms. Pankhuri Shrivastava, Adv. Ms. Neelam Sharma, AOR Mr. Alekshendra Sharma, Adv. Mr. Deepankar Kumar, Adv. Ms. Geetanjali Mohan, AOR Ms. Saumya Tiwari, Adv. Ms. Shalini Chandra, AOR Mr. Virag Gupta, Adv. Ms. Rupali Panwar, Adv. Mr. U M Tripathi, Adv. Mr. Vishal Arun Mishra, AOR Mr. Kailas Bajirao Autade, AOR