Ashok Kumar Yadav v State of Haryana (1985)

It fixes how far a member of a selection body related to a candidate must withdraw, and it is the clearest Indian application of the doctrine of necessity: the rule against bias yields where compliance would make a constitutional function impossible, but it yields only so far as necessity requires, and the Court replaces it with specific safeguards rather than abandoning it.

The Haryana Public Service Commission selected 119 candidates for the Haryana Civil Service (Executive) and allied services. Two members, R. C. Marya and Raghubar Dayal Gaur, each had relatives among the selected candidates. Each withdrew when his own relative was interviewed, but each sat for the rest. Unsuccessful candidates alleged that the members "did participate in the interview of other candidates and the tactics adopted by the Chairman and the members of the Commission was to give high marks to the relatives and award low marks to the other candidates".

The selections stood, because the three conditions the Court laid down had been satisfied.

The rebuke to the High Court. The Division Bench had inferred nepotism from the fact that the three related candidates scored 160, 131 and 130 in the viva. The Supreme Court called that inference "wholly unjustified" and said the Bench "indulged in surmises and conjectures", asking: "Can a relative of a member of a Public Service Commission, Central or State, not get high marks at the viva voce examination on his own merit? Must he always get low marks, so that if high marks are awarded to him, that would necessarily be attributed to his relationship with the member of the Public Service Commission?" It also refused to treat a member's own published article criticising political interference — in which he wrote that "the politicians are always in a hurry to pack the P.S.Cs. with such persons who would be pliable tools in the matter of recruitment" and that "there is a widespread feeling in the States (mercifully, with the U.P.S.C. as a possible exception) that every post carries a price tag" — as evidence against the Commission; on the contrary, that he did not dissent from the marking showed "there was nothing wrong with the marking".

The general rule. The Court accepted "that no man can be a judge in his own cause and that if there is a reasonable likelihood of bias", it is "in accordance with natural justice and common sense that the justice likely to be so biased should be incapacitated from sitting". What is objectionable "is not that the decision is actually tainted with bias but that the circumstances are such as to create a reasonable apprehension in the mind of others that there is a likelihood of bias affecting the decision." Where the allegation rests on relationship, "the question would always be as to how close be the" "degree of relationship".

The rule for an ordinary selection committee, stated without qualification: "if a Selection Committee is constituted for the purpose of selecting candidates on merits and one of the members of the Selection Committee is closely related to a candidate appearing for the selection, it would not be enough for such member merely to withdraw from participation in the interview of the candidate related to him but he must withdraw altogether from the entire selection process and ask the authorities to nominate another person in his place".

Why a Public Service Commission is different. It is set up under Article 316 and its members cannot be replaced ad hoc: "If a member of a Public Service Commission were to withdraw altogether from the selection process on the ground that a close relative of his is appearing for selection, no other person save a member can be substituted in his place", and the Commission's functioning "may be affected". When members hold a viva "they are functioning not as individuals but as the Public Service Commission."

The three safeguards prescribed instead. Such a member "must withdraw from participation in the interview of that candidate and must not take part in any discussion in regard to the merits of that candidate and even the marks or credits given to that candidate should not be disclosed to him."

How far the rule against bias reaches. The Court held it "is not confined to cases where judicial power strict sense is exercised" and "is appropriately extended to all cases where an independent mind has to be applied to arrive at a fair and just decision between the rival claims of parties", because "Justice is not the function of the courts alone".

A member of a selection committee closely related to a candidate must withdraw from the whole selection process; but where the body is a constitutional one whose members cannot be substituted, the doctrine of necessity applies and the member need only withdraw from that candidate's interview, take no part in any discussion of his merits, and not be told his marks.

• On bias: with Kraipak, which sets aside a selection where the interested member did sit on his rivals' claims.
• On necessity: with Amar Nath Chowdhury, where necessity was rejected because the rules themselves permitted delegation of the appellate power to a committee excluding the tainted officer. Necessity is a real doctrine but a narrow one; it applies only where no lawful alternative exists.
• The passage on surmises and conjectures is useful whenever a problem invites you to infer bias from an outcome alone.