Allahabad High Court Refuses To Entertain Plea Against AIIMS Recruitment Advertisement, Says Remedy Lies Before CAT

The Allahabad High Court has recently held that a writ petition against recruitment advertisement by All India Institute of Medical Science, Raebareli is not maintainable.

While dismissing the writ petition, Justice Shree Prakash Singh relied on the decisions of the Supreme Court in L. Chandra Kumar V. Union Of India to hold that,

“...the tribunals created under Article 323A and 323B of the Constitution of India, are possessed of the competence to test the constitutional validity of statutory provisions and rules and even the vires of the act of the statutory legislation can also be looked into, by the Tribunals.”

Petitioner challenged an advertisement regarding recruitment to the two posts of Assistant Store Officer and three post of Private Secretary in AIIMS Raebareli before the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. A preliminary objection was raised regarding maintainability of the writ petition in light of the existence of Central Administrative Tribunal which would be an efficacious forum in dealing with such challenge.

Referring to Section 14 of the Administrative Tribunal Act, 1985, the Court observed that the Central Administrative Tribunals shall exercise on and from the appointed day, all the jurisdiction, authority and powers, exercisable by all the courts.

The Court held that even though the institution which issued the advertisement was notified by the Central Government during the pendency of the writ petition, by virtue of Section 29 of the Act, any pending case before the High Court was to be transferred to the Tribunal.

“In the above-noted provisions the word 'pending before a court or authority' has substantive meaning. The question is that when a matter could be said to be pending before any court or authority, is the date, when it is filed and the date, when it's decided finally. So far as the case in hand is concerned, admittedly, the date of notification of the Institution is 13.01.2026 and the present writ petition has been filed on 08.01.2026, while the date of advertisement is 11.11.2025 as is apparent from the advertisement itself and the writ petition has been filed with the main prayer of quashing the aforesaid advertisement.”

The Court held that the proceedings was necessarily to be initiated before the Tribunal and only because the notification by the Central Government was issued during the pendency of the writ petition, will not make them maintainable.

Accordingly, the writ petition was dismissed as not maintainable.

Case Title: Amit Gupta And 5 Others Versus U.O.I. Thru. Secy. Deptt. Of Medical Health And

Family Welfare New Delhi And 5 Others

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