Service & Employment Law — 73 Valkya Editorial digests
Public employment and service law — regularisation, pension as a deferred wage, the proportionality of disciplinary punishment, compassionate appointment, and the industrial and labour-law disputes that shape the employment relationship.
The Supreme Court held that a candidate from a vertically reserved category (SC/ST/OBC) who scores above the general cut-off must be adjusted against the open seats on merit, not counted against the reserved quota. The rule holds even where the candidate also claims a horizontal reservation such as for women. The open category is open to all on merit.
On 9 June 2026 the Supreme Court held that a member of the Central Armed Police Forces, including the BSF, may invoke the Delhi High Court's writ jurisdiction under Article 226(1) in a service matter on the strength of the situs of the Union of India and the force headquarters in Delhi, notwithstanding that the cause of action arose outside that High Court's territory. The doctrine of forum non conveniens, the Court held, will rarely apply where a constitutional remedy is pursued under clause (1) of Article 226.
The Supreme Court held that long-serving casual labourers granted temporary status under the 1991 Scheme are entitled to pension on superannuation even without a formal regularisation order. Pension, the Court reiterated, is a deferred wage, not employer grace. The Patna High Court was reversed and the CAT's orders restored.
The Supreme Court held that an Internal Complaints Committee at the aggrieved woman's own workplace has jurisdiction under the POSH Act even where the respondent is employed in a different department or organisation. The phrase 'where the respondent is an employee' in Section 11 is a conditional trigger for service rules, not a jurisdictional limit.
Fifteen years after Vishaka, a long-running PIL forced compliance. The Supreme Court directed States to constitute Complaints Committees and amend their service and standing-order rules so that a Committee's report counts as a disciplinary inquiry finding — the enforcement bridge from Vishaka to the POSH Act, 2013.
The Supreme Court, following Reliance General Insurance v. Shashi Sharma, held that compassionate financial assistance under the Haryana Rules of 2006 — which replicates the deceased employee's pay and wages — must be deducted from the loss-of-income component of a Motor Vehicles Act dependency award, because allowing both would be an impermissible double benefit. Genuinely collateral receipts such as life insurance and family pension remain non-deductible under Helen C. Rebello.
The Bombay High Court held that a shared autorickshaw used to commute to office is not a 'workplace' under s.2(o)(v) of the POSH Act unless the transport is employer-provided. The Internal Committee that found the SBI employee guilty therefore acted without jurisdiction, and its order was set aside.
The Kerala High Court held that a 'hostile work environment' divorced from any sexual conduct or advance is not sexual harassment under the POSH Act, and that proceedings need a written complaint under Section 9. A purely service or labour grievance falls outside the Act.
The Delhi High Court held that discharging a probationer while her sexual harassment complaint was pending — in defiance of a no-adverse-action direction — was retaliatory, mala fide and void. It ordered reinstatement with full back wages, and ruled that the Akademi's Secretary is the 'employer' under section 2(g) of the POSH Act, so the Local Committee had jurisdiction.
The Supreme Court partly allowed an electricity-company clerk's appeal, holding that once a defective departmental inquiry is set aside and misconduct is later proved on fresh evidence, the disciplinary authority cannot mechanically fall back on the old, pre-remand show-cause notice and reimpose dismissal — it must independently apply its mind to the quantum of punishment. A digest of the facts, the holding on proportionality and natural justice, and what it means for service-law practice.
A Division Bench of the Karnataka High Court allowed a person with locomotor disability to be appointed as Assistant Accounts Officer under the PwD quota, holding that suitability cannot be judged on a medical certificate alone but must include a functional assessment of the candidate's actual ability to do the job. A digest of the facts, the holding under the RPwD Act 2016, and what it means for public-employment selection.
In 1986 the Supreme Court struck down a State company's reasonless-termination clause as void under Section 23 of the Contract Act and arbitrary under Art. 14.
In 1974 a five-judge Constitution Bench dismissed E.P. Royappa's challenge to his transfer, yet Justice Bhagwati's opinion reshaped Indian equality law by holding that equality and arbitrariness are sworn enemies. A digest of the facts, the new arbitrariness test under Articles 14 and 16, and the doctrine's later trajectory.
A three-judge bench laid down a strict, impropriety-based six-fold test for piercing the corporate veil, holding that canteen workers engaged through a wholly-owned subsidiary were not workmen of the parent company.
On 1 November 1995, a three-judge Bench restated the limited scope of judicial review of departmental discipline — review of the manner of decision, not an appeal on merits — and confined interference with the quantum of punishment to penalties that shock the conscience of the court.
On 31 March 2005, a two-judge bench restated the contours of natural justice — its flexibility, the primacy of audi alteram partem, the governing role of prejudice, and the capacity of a post-decisional hearing to cure a deficient pre-decisional one.
On 2 May 1990, a five-judge Constitution Bench distilled the law of seniority into eleven propositions — holding that seniority counts from the date of appointment according to rule, not confirmation, and that continuous officiation till regularisation counts towards seniority.
On 17 December 1982, a five-judge Constitution Bench held that pension is a right earned by past service — a deferred wage, not a bounty — and struck down a retirement cut-off date that split a homogeneous class of pensioners as arbitrary under Article 14.
On 4 September 1990, a Constitution Bench of five judges struck down a 'hire and fire' clause permitting termination of permanent employees without reasons and without hearing — holding that audi alteram partem must be read into State termination powers and that arbitrary, unguided dismissal violates Article 14.
Decided on 4 April 1995, this judgment defined the 'commercial purpose' exclusion from the meaning of 'consumer' and held that the 1993 self-employment Explanation brings back the person who buys goods to earn a livelihood.
On 1 October 1993, a five-judge Constitution Bench held that a delinquent employee is entitled to a copy of the inquiry officer's report before the disciplinary authority decides — but tempered the remedy with a prejudice test, making non-supply void only where the employee shows prejudice.
The Uttarakhand High Court suspended a POCSO conviction and granted bail, terming the trial-court verdict 'more than shocking' — this was not a case of insufficient evidence but of no evidence at all, with the victim hostile and forensics unconnected to the accused.
On 19 December 2008, the Supreme Court held that a departmental enquiry finding cannot rest on the inquiry officer's ipse dixit, surmise or conjecture — that suspicion is never a substitute for legal proof, and that disciplinary orders carrying civil consequences must be supported by recorded reasons.
Valkya Editorial··8 min
High CourtHigh Court of Himachal Pradesh at Shimla
The Himachal Pradesh High Court held that a married daughter cannot be excluded from the deceased's 'family' for compassionate appointment solely on the ground of her marital status — such exclusion is arbitrary and violates Articles 14 and 15.
On 19 October 1962, a five-judge Constitution Bench laid the foundation of the 'some evidence' rule in service discipline — holding that a High Court will not upset a departmental penalty supportable on a surviving finding of substantial misconduct, even if another finding is defective.
On 3 October 2024, a three-judge bench struck down prison-manual provisions that segregated barracks and allotted labour by caste, holding them to violate Articles 14, 15, 17, 21 and 23, and ordered deletion of the caste column from prison registers.
On 26 November 2025, the Karnataka High Court at Dharwad held that the Civil Rights Enforcement Cell has no power to investigate the validity of a caste certificate suo motu — its jurisdiction arises only on a reference from the District Caste Verification Committee.
On 11 July 1985, a five-judge Constitution Bench upheld the second proviso to Article 311(2) — the three situations in which a civil servant may be dismissed without the constitutional inquiry — while holding the recorded satisfaction reviewable by courts for relevance and bona fides.
On 21 May 2024, the Punjab & Haryana High Court permitted a married woman who conceived through her husband's non-consensual sexual assault, and who had filed for divorce, to terminate the pregnancy — only the pregnant woman's consent is required under the MTP Act.
On 15 April 2026, a two-judge bench inverted the conventional reading of the discharge–acquittal hierarchy, holding that a criminal-court discharge stands on a better footing than an acquittal and that disciplinary action on the same facts is barred once the armed forces have elected section 124 prosecution before a criminal court.
On March 2026, a two-judge bench struck down the State's 40–60% disability eligibility cap for an Assistant District Attorney post, ordered the appointment of a 90%-disabled advocate, and imposed ₹5 lakh costs on the State.
On 24 April 2026, a two-judge bench permitted the medical termination of a 15-year-old's 28-week pregnancy, holding that Article 21's reproductive-autonomy guarantee — particularly for a pregnant minor — takes precedence over the MTP Act's statutory 24-week outer limit, and that adoption cannot be offered as a substitute for forced continuation.
On 28 April 2026, a Madras HC Division Bench struck down Tamil Nadu G.O. Ms. No. 18 of 13 March 2026 restricting maternity leave for a third pregnancy to 12 weeks, operationalising K. Umadevi (2025) and anchoring maternity benefit as a facet of Article 21 reproductive autonomy.
On 9 January 2026, a two-judge bench held that mandating medical age-determination at the bail stage in POCSO matters is impermissible and urged the Centre to consider a 'Romeo–Juliet' clause for close-in-age consensual relationships.
On 11 March 2026, a two-judge bench held that creamy-layer status under the DoPT 1993 Office Memorandum cannot be determined solely on parental income; the status-based and income-based gates must be applied as distinct, and the DoPT clarificatory letter of 14 October 2004 was held ultra vires the substantive 1993 OM framework.
On 6 November 1996, a three-judge bench held that once the appropriate Government issues a Section 10 notification under the Contract Labour Act prohibiting contract labour in a process, the displaced workers stand automatically absorbed into the principal employer's establishment. The doctrine lived for five years before a Constitution Bench overruled it in SAIL.
On 28 August 1981, a three-judge Bench led by Fazal Ali J. struck down the first-pregnancy termination clause and the Managing Director's uncontrolled retirement-extension discretion in the Air India and Indian Airlines service regulations, while upholding the differential retirement age and four-year marriage-bar for female cabin crew on cadre-classification reasoning. A digest of the mixed ruling, the sex-plus doctrine it installed, the feminist critique that followed, and the modern anti-stereotype frame in Anuj Garg, Babita Puniya and Joseph Shine that has substantially overtaken its weaker holdings.
On 20 January 1999 — the first Supreme Court application of Vishaka — Chief Justice Anand, writing for a two-judge Bench, restored the disciplinary dismissal of a Private Secretary at the Apparel Export Promotion Council that the Delhi High Court had reduced. The judgment held that sexual harassment includes any unwelcome sexually-determined conduct and does not require physical contact; that unwelcomeness is judged from the victim's perspective; and that writ-court review of disciplinary action in sexual-harassment cases is narrowly confined to procedural fairness and proportionality. A digest of the holding, the CEDAW-anchored reasoning, and the line that runs from Vishaka through Chopra into Section 2(n) of the POSH Act 2013.
On 12 May 2023, a two-judge Bench of Bopanna and Hima Kohli JJ. set aside the Goa University disciplinary inquiry against its former vice-chancellor for procedural defects in the Internal Complaints Committee and, more consequentially, issued nationwide directions to State Legal Services Authorities, the National Judicial Academy and statutory regulators for ICC capacity-building, compliance audits and training. A digest of the holding, the structural reasons the 2013 POSH Act needed a second judicial push ten years on, and the compliance architecture the directions installed.
Calcutta HC cancels the entire 2016 WBSSC panel of ~25,753 appointments where OMR manipulation made tainted and untainted inseparable; Supreme Court upheld it.
On 16 December 1983, a three-judge bench held that Article 21 derives its life-breath from the Directive Principles and laid the foundation for continuing-mandamus supervision of bonded-labour rehabilitation.
On 21 February 1978, a seven-judge Constitution Bench laid down the triple test for 'industry' under s.2(j) of the Industrial Disputes Act, sweeping hospitals, clubs, and charities into its coverage.
The Supreme Court's April 2026 ruling on the conjunctive 'or' in *Rule 69(1)(c)* of the CCS (Pension) Rules 1972. A 2-judge bench held that the embargo on the release of gratuity operates for the entire duration during which either departmental or judicial proceedings remain pending against a retired employee — and the embargo persists until both sets of proceedings conclude. Exoneration in the departmental proceeding does not lift the bar where a criminal trial on the same allegations remains pending. The doctrinal line draws a sharp separation from *Jaswant Singh Gill v. Bharat Coking Coal* (2007) on the *Payment of Gratuity Act 1972* and is to be read alongside *Kadir Khan Ahmed Khan Pathan v. MSWC* (2026 INSC 16) as a 2026 SC pair on the post-retirement disciplinary architecture.
The Social Security Code consolidates nine statutes — EPF 1952, ESI 1948, Maternity Benefit 1961, Payment of Gratuity 1972, Workmen's Compensation 1923, BOCW Cess 1996 and three more — and adds the world's first national statutory frame for gig and platform workers. A practitioner's read on the gig and platform definitions, the 1-to-2 per cent aggregator contribution, the pro-rata gratuity rule, and the June 2026 commencement gap.
The first of the four labour Codes consolidates the Payment of Wages Act 1936, the Minimum Wages Act 1948, the Payment of Bonus Act 1965 and the Equal Remuneration Act 1976 into a single instrument. Partially commenced in December 2020; the substantive chapters await further Section 1(3) notifications. A practitioner's read on the architecture, the open compliance questions, and the old-law judgments that continue to govern.
On 11 May 2020, the Supreme Court applied the Anuradha Bhasin framework to J&K's 4G blackout, constituting a Special Committee and holding that restrictions must be calibrated territorially and temporally to what is actually necessary.
On 29 March 2019 a two-judge bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and Hemant Gupta suspended — not outright quashed — the 28 October 2015 environmental clearance for the Mopa greenfield airport in Goa, and remitted the matter to the Expert Appraisal Committee for re-examination within a month, on a record that disclosed non-disclosure in Form-1 of ecologically sensitive markers, an inadequate cumulative-impact assessment, and faunal markers including the South Asian river dolphin that the EAC's recommendation had not engaged. A practitioner's read on the duty of candour, the EIA rigour standard, and the suspension-for-re-examination remedial template.
On 13 December 2021, a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court issued notice on a writ petition seeking recognition of gig workers as workers within the Indian labour-law architecture, social security entitlements under the Code on Social Security 2020 Chapter IX, and operational implementation of the Unorganised Workers' Social Security Act 2008 — a doctrinal classification question that remains pending.
The Industrial Relations Code, 2020 consolidates the Trade Unions Act 1926, the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act 1946 and the Industrial Disputes Act 1947 into a single instrument. Three substantive shifts — fixed-term employment recognition, the universal 60-day strike notice, and the 300-worker layoff threshold — redraw India's labour-flexibility map. A practitioner's read on the architecture, the open Rules questions, and the old-law jurisprudence that continues to govern.
On 1 May 2001, a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court affirmed the Shambhu Nath Goyal threshold-pleading rule — management must, at the first opportunity in its written statement before the Tribunal, reserve the right to lead fresh evidence in the event the domestic enquiry is found invalid.
The Armed Forces Tribunal held a soldier retiring on superannuation, not only one invalided out, entitled to rounding-off of disability pension to 50% for life.
The Code on Wages 2019, the Industrial Relations Code 2020, the OSH Code 2020 and the Code on Social Security 2020 have all been gazetted. Almost none of their substantive provisions are in force. A practitioner's map of the commencement architecture, the State Rules patchwork, the writ-petition pipeline, and what continues to govern in June 2026.
The May-June 2026 cycle in Indian labour and employment law has been dominated by the 8 May 2026 Industrial Relations (Central) Rules notification, the operationalisation of state-level gig-worker frameworks led by Karnataka, the continuing IFAT v. Union of India petition before the Supreme Court, and a clutch of apex-court rulings on workman classification and contract-labour referral jurisdiction.
The OSH Code consolidates thirteen statutes — Factories Act 1948, Mines Act 1952, Contract Labour 1970, Inter-State Migrant Workmen 1979, BOCW 1996, Plantation Labour 1951 and seven more — into a single occupational-safety frame. A practitioner's read on the new factory threshold, the migrant worker definition, the contract-labour line, and the June 2026 commencement gap.
On 18 September 1982, a two-judge bench held that payment below minimum wage is 'forced labour' under Article 23, opening Article 32 to construction workers at the Delhi Asian Games sites.
On 13 December 2017, a three-judge bench ordered search engines to auto-block pre-natal sex-determination advertisements, recalibrating the Shreya Singhal intermediary safe-harbour for PCPNDT enforcement.
On 30 August 2001, a five-judge Constitution Bench unanimously held that no automatic absorption flows from a Section 10 notification under the Contract Labour Act. Air India Statutory Corporation was prospectively overruled. The remedy for displaced contract workers is industrial adjudication — not direct constitutional absorption.
On 17 February 2020, a two-judge Bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and Ajay Rastogi held that the Ministry of Defence policy denying Short Service Commission women officers Permanent Commission in non-combat arms of the Indian Army — Army Service Corps, Ordnance Corps, EME, Signals, Intelligence Corps, AEC, JAG and the other streams in which women had been inducted as SSC officers — violates Articles 14, 15 and 16. The Court rejected the Centre's submissions about 'physiological limitations', 'domestic obligations' and unit cohesion as constitutionally impermissible gender stereotypes, set aside the 'staff appointments only' restriction in the 25 February 2019 policy letter, and directed that all serving SSC women officers be considered for Permanent Commission on terms equivalent to male officers with consequential entitlements. *Babita Puniya* installed the anti-stereotype framework that *Annie Nagaraja* (Navy) and *Lt Col Nitisha* (indirect discrimination) elaborated, and that *Lt Col Pooja Pal* (2026) operationalised through Article 142 structural compensatory relief.
The May–June 2026 cycle in Indian service and employment law has produced the most operationally consequential clutch of developments since the four Labour Codes were notified on 21 November 2025. The *Social Security (Central) Rules 2026* — notified on 8 May 2026 — operationalise the Chapter IX gig-and-platform-worker framework with the first enforceable monetary obligation on aggregators. The *MoLE* additional FAQs on the Codes supply working compliance guidance — including a standardised 50%-of-CTC wages definition. *Bhola Nath v. State of Jharkhand* refines the *Umadevi* regularisation discipline through the model-employer doctrine. *Avinash Kumar v. UoI* polices deemed-abandonment clauses. *Virinder Pal Singh v. Punjab and Sind Bank* settles the continuing-post-retirement-disciplinary question. *Rupesh Kumar Meena v. UoI* preserves the finality of selection. *Balaji Madhukar Konkanwar* rejects estoppel on structural-inequality grounds. The Supreme Court strikes down the three-month adoption-age cap on maternity leave under the *Code on Social Security 2020*. The dismissal-versus-compulsory-retirement dichotomy under *Article 311(2)* is given operational content. Read together, the cycle resets the working architecture in which Indian service-and-employment practice now runs.
On 10 April 2006, a five-judge Constitution Bench led by Sabharwal CJ and authored by Balasubramanyan J held that public employment must follow Article 16 — competitive, advertised, merit-based recruitment to sanctioned posts — and that temporary, casual, daily-wage, ad hoc or contractual appointees made outside that scheme acquire no fundamental right to regularisation however long they may have served. The judgment drew a sharp doctrinal line between 'irregular' and 'illegal' appointments, granted a one-time, fixed-date paragraph-53 exception for irregular appointees who had completed ten years of service on sanctioned posts as of 10 April 2006, and overruled *Dharwad PWD*, *Daily Rated Casual Labour v. Union of India* and *Ashwani Kumar v. State of Bihar*. The decision remains the gravitational centre of Indian regularisation jurisprudence two decades on.
The Supreme Court's April 2026 ruling that the right to dearness allowance, once incorporated into a state's statutory pay rules through a specific AICPI-linked mechanism, becomes a legally enforceable right that the executive cannot displace by memorandum — regardless of the state's financial constraints. Financial inability is not a defence to a statutory pay mechanism; executive economic policy cannot derogate from a statutory pay framework. The reasoning consolidates the doctrinal line that statutory pay mechanisms in public employment have the force of law, not the malleability of executive instruction.
On 21 February 1975, a five-judge Constitution Bench held that statutory corporations created by Acts of Parliament — ONGC, LIC and IFCI in the consolidated appeals — are 'authorities' within Article 12, that regulations framed by such corporations under their enabling statutes have the force of law and bind both employer and employee as more than mere contract, and that public-sector dismissals made in breach of those statutory regulations are void, entitling the employee to reinstatement. Justice K.K. Mathew's concurring opinion laid the foundations of the 'instrumentality of State' doctrine that was elaborated in *R.D. Shetty* (1979) and *Ajay Hasia* (1981), and refined by the 7-judge Bench in *Pradeep Kumar Biswas* (2002). *Sukhdev Singh* remains the backbone of Indian public-employment jurisprudence.
Delhi HC in June 2016 held service tax on under-construction flats invalid in absence of statutory machinery to separate the service component from land and goods value.
On 7 November 2024, a five-judge Constitution Bench held that recruitment criteria — the 'rules of the game' — cannot be altered after the selection process has begun, unless the rules so permit.
The Supreme Court's foundational decision on the doctrinal limits of compassionate appointment in public employment. A 2-judge bench held that compassionate appointment is not a constitutional or fundamental right but a narrow exception to the *Article 16* rule, designed to provide immediate financial relief to the family of a deceased employee — not to bestow the deceased's post as an 'heirloom' on his progeny. The judgment installed the junior-most-post discipline, the financial-condition examination, the reasonable-time requirement, and a clear limit on judicial direction outside the rules. Thirty years on, the *Sawant J* framework remains the operative anchor of compassionate-appointment jurisprudence, read together with *Canara Bank v. M. Mahesh Kumar* (2015), *Canara Bank v. Ajithkumar G.K.* (2025), and the post-*Umadevi* (2006) regularisation discipline.
On 28 August 1985, a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court read Section 2(oo) of the Industrial Disputes Act with the breadth its language demands — every termination by the employer is retrenchment unless it falls within one of the enumerated exceptions.
On 6 March 1973, a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court gave Section 11A its foundational construction — the Industrial Tribunal's own satisfaction on guilt and punishment displaces the four-grounds restraint of Indian Iron & Steel, and the Tribunal may alter the punishment imposed by an employer.
On 10 January 2020, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court led by Justice N.V. Ramana — hearing challenges to the communications shutdown imposed on Jammu and Kashmir after the August 2019 abrogation of Article 370 — held that the freedom of speech and the freedom to practise trade and profession over the internet are protected under Articles 19(1)(a) and 19(1)(g) of the Constitution; that restrictions on those freedoms must satisfy a four-step proportionality test imported from Puttaswamy; that suspension orders under the Temporary Suspension of Telecom Services Rules 2017 must be published and subjected to mandatory periodic review; and that Section 144 CrPC cannot be deployed to suppress legitimate dissent. The companion judgment in Ghulam Nabi Azad v. Union of India laid down the operative directions on Section 144.
On 27 January 2026, a two-judge bench of Justices Pankaj Mithal and S.V.N. Bhatti held that disputes relating to the employment, termination, or alleged sham nature of contract labour arrangements must be adjudicated by a Labour Court or Industrial Tribunal under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 — and that the State's reference jurisdiction operates even on an apprehended dispute and is not foreclosed by the absence of a prior written demand on the employer. The judgment reaffirms the SAIL safeguards for contract labour and supplies a working architecture for contract-labour litigation.
On 11 March 2026, a Supreme Court bench of Justices Rajesh Bindal and Vijay Bishnoi held in M. Thanigivelu v. Tamil Nadu Electricity Board that training is part of the service for the purposes of seniority — and that an administrative Board Proceeding cannot retrospectively re-date the seniority of direct recruits to align them with promotees. The judgment restates a longstanding service-jurisprudence principle in the language of the TNEB Service Regulations and clarifies the limits on the State employer's discretion to reorder service hierarchies through administrative instruments.
Forty-eight years after Justice Krishna Iyer's expansive reading of 'industry' under Section 2(j) of the Industrial Disputes Act, a nine-judge Constitution Bench led by the Chief Justice has reserved judgment on whether the test in *Bangalore Water Supply* lays down correct law. A practitioner's preview of the reference, the bench, the questions, and what an answer either way would mean for labour and HR practice.
A Division Bench of the Karnataka High Court — Justice D.K. Singh and Justice T.M. Nadaf — has held that the Chief Minister's Office should not directly entertain or interfere in transfer and posting decisions for government and public-undertaking employees. The substantive direction: no transfer request for Group B or C employees should be entertained by the CMO; the matter should end at the department level. The doctrinal architecture engages the separation-of-functions principle that has been developing in Indian administrative law, the constitutional protection of merit and integrity in public administration, and the practical concern that political-office interference in routine personnel decisions distorts both administration and democratic accountability.
A Division Bench of the Allahabad High Court has reaffirmed that a conviction recorded against a juvenile under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act cannot operate as a disqualification for appointment to government or public services. The reasoning engages the rehabilitation-and-reintegration principle that anchors the entire JJ Act framework, and the constitutional protection of privacy and dignity that follows the *Puttaswamy* line. A digest of the doctrinal architecture, the bench's directions, and its relationship with the broader 'right to be forgotten' jurisprudence.