Just when hundreds of young engineers believed their long wait for government appointments was nearing an end, a sudden rule change pushed everything into uncertainty. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court put a full stop to that disruption, holding that the Bihar government could not change the basis of selection after the recruitment process had already moved to its final stage.
The court made it clear: once the game has begun, the rules cannot be rewritten.
Background of the Case
The dispute arose from recruitment advertisements issued in 2019 for Assistant Engineer posts in Bihar’s public departments. At that time, the governing rules clearly stated that selection would be based solely on marks obtained in a written examination.
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The process moved slowly but steadily. Written exams were conducted in March 2022. Provisional merit lists were published in June and July 2022, and candidates, including the appellants, were called for document verification.
Then came a twist.
In November 2022, the Bihar government amended the recruitment rules. The amendment introduced additional marks for candidates with prior contractual work experience and also provided age relaxation. Crucially, the government applied this amendment retrospectively from 2019 - the very year the recruitment process began.
Candidates who had already secured places in the merit list challenged this move, arguing that the goalposts had been shifted after the match was almost over.
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What the High Court Said
The Patna High Court dismissed the challenge. It accepted the State’s argument that the amendment was a policy decision aimed at rewarding contractual employees and held that candidates did not gain any enforceable right merely by appearing in a provisional merit list.
This prompted the affected candidates to approach the Supreme Court.
Key Issues Before the Supreme Court
At the heart of the case was a narrow but critical question:
Can the government apply a new selection formula to an ongoing recruitment process after the written exam and provisional merit list are already completed?
The court made it clear that it was not examining whether the amended rule itself was valid - only whether it could be applied to this ongoing selection.
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Court’s Observations
The bench took a close look at the original recruitment rules and noted that selection was meant to be determined only by written exam marks.
It rejected the State’s argument that the merit list was merely “provisional” in nature. The court observed that provisional status applied only to document verification, not to a complete overhaul of selection criteria.
“The rules of the game cannot be changed once the game has been played,” the bench observed, stressing that candidates had participated with a legitimate expectation that selection would follow the rules in force at the time of advertisement.
The judges also underlined that while the State has the power to amend service rules, that power is not unlimited. Retrospective amendments cannot be used to unsettle a recruitment process that has already reached its concluding stages.
The Supreme Court’s Decision
Allowing the appeal, the Supreme Court set aside the Patna High Court judgment.
It held that the 2022 amendment granting weightage for contractual experience cannot be applied to the recruitment initiated under the 2019 advertisements.
The court directed the Bihar government to finalize appointments strictly on the basis of the original 2019 rules - without adding marks or age relaxation introduced later - and to complete the process within two months.
With this, the long-pending selection process was ordered back onto its original track.
Case Title: Abhay Kumar Patel & Ors. vs State of Bihar & Ors.
Case No.: Civil Appeal arising out of SLP (C) No. 22323 of 2023
Case Type: Service Law – Recruitment Dispute
Decision Date: 6 January 2026
