Challenge To Agnipath Scheme : Supreme Court Refuses To Transfer To Itself Cases In HCs; Sends Petitions Filed Before It To Delhi High Court

The Supreme Court on Tuesday transferred the writ petitions filed before it challenging the Agnipath recruitment scheme for the armed forces to the Delhi High Court, where similar petitions are already pending.

A bench comprising Justices DY Chandrachud, Surya Kant and AS Bopanna passed the order in three writ petitions filed under Article 32 of the Constitution of India. Two of the petitions were public interest litigation and the other one was a writ petition filed by a group of persons shortlisted for airman selection in the Indian Air Force who plead that the recruitment process which commenced in previous years should be completed regardless of the Agnipath scheme.

SC refuses to trasnfer cases in HCs to itself

The Supreme Court refused to transfer petitions pending before the High Courts to itself saying that it would deprive the top court of the reasoning of the High Courts.

"In our view, a multiplicity of writ petitions on the subject would not either be desirable or proper. One option would be for this court to consolidate and transfer all pending proceedings before this court. However this would deprive this court of the considered view of the High Court on various aspects of the validity of the scheme and its implementation which are being raised in several high courts".

Option given to petitioners before other HCs to pursue the matter beore Delhi HC

The bench also noted that similar petitions are pending before other High Courts as well, such as Kerala, Punjab & Haryana, Allahabad and Patna.

As regards similar petitons pending in other High Courts, Supreme Court said that the HCs should either give an option to the petitioners to either have their petitions transferred to the Delhi HC or to keep their petitions pending with liberty to petitioners to intervene in Delhi HC.

"The court has been apprised of the fact as noted above that several petitions have been filed also before the High Courts of Patna, Punjab and Haryana, Uttarakhand, Kerala. It will be appropriate to direct that a copy of the present order may be placed on the record of the proceedings in each of the High Courts by the counsel appearing on behalf of the union of India in those proceedings. The High Courts shall furnish an option to the petitioners who have moved those petitions under Article 226 to either have their petitions transferred in pursuance of the present directions or in the alternative to keep those petitions pending while granting liberty to the petitioners to intervene in the proceedings before the Delhi High Court. In the event that the petitioners desire the former course of action, the proceedings before each of the High Court will in turn be transferred to the Delhi High Court to be heard along with the pending proceedings. If the petitioners do not desire to follow that course of action, the High Courts shall keep those petitions pending and the petitioners before the High Court would be at liberty to intervene before the Delhi High Court so that they have a full opportunity of espousing their contentions before the Delhi High Court in the pending proceedings", the Court's order stated.

The Court also requeted the Delhi High Court to expeditiously decide the matter.

"In the event any proceedings are filed after this order, the same course of action as we have in indicated above shall be perceived by the High Court. All the petitioners would be at liberty to move all applications before the Delhi High Court. We request the Delhi high court to set down the petitions for expeditious disposal after hearing the parties", the Court's order stated.

Advocates Ms.Kumud Lata Das and ML Sharma and Senior Advocate Umesh Shukla appeared in the petitions filed before the Supreme Court. Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta along with Additional Solicitor Generals KM Nataraj and Aishwarya Bhati appeared for the Union Government.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, ppearing in a petition filed before the Delhi High Court, submitted that in the petition in which he has filed, the validity of the scheme is not directly under challenge but one of the reliefs which is sought is for the completion of the enrolment process which had already been initiated earlier. The relief which has been stated by Bhushan would overlap with some of the reliefs which have been sought before the court in the petitions which have been argued by Kumud Lata Das, the bench noted.

Cases :  Harsh Ajay Singh v Union of India |WP(c) 457/2022, Manohar Lal Sharma v Union of India | WP(c) 458/2022, Ravindra Singh Shekhawat v Union of India | WP(c) 473/2022

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