2026:UHC:258 SL. No. Date Office Notes, reports, orders or proceedings or directions and Registrar’s order with Signatures COURT’S OR JUDGE’S ORDERS WPSS/2260/2025 Hon’ble Manoj Kumar Tiwari, J Ms. Shumayla Zafri, Advocate for the petitioner. 2. Mr. Rajeev Singh Bisht, Additional Chief Standing Counsel for the State of Uttarakhand/ respondent nos. 1 to 4. 3. Petitioner participated in the selection for appointment as Anganwadi Sahayika for Anganwadi Centre, Ghorakhal, District Nainital, held in January/February, 2025. 4. According to the petitioner, she stood at sl. No. 1, in order of merit, yet she has not been appointed. Since, the selection process for Anganwadi Centre, Ghorakhal alone has been cancelled by the Director, Women Empowerment, vide order dated 28.10.2025, therefore, petitioner has approached this Court. 5. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that there is no reason or justification whatsoever for cancelling the selection only for Anganwadi Centre, Ghorakhal. She submits that selection is based on academic performance in High School and Intermediate Examination and in both examinations, petitioner’s performance is better than that of Smt. Pooja Arya, on whose complaint, the selection has been cancelled. 6. Learned State Counsel, however, submits that the complaint received against the selection was that certain 2026:UHC:258 candidates, who were eligible for appointment as Angawadi Sahayika had in fact uploaded their educational certificates, however, those certificates were not reflected in the concerned web portal, due to which their claim for appointment could not be considered. He submits that since the complaint against the selection was that equal opportunity of participating for public employment was not made available to all candidates, therefore, the Director has decided to hold selection afresh for Anganwadi Centre, Ghorakhal. 7. Law is well settled that mere selection does not create any indefeasible right of appointment, as held by Constitution Bench of Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of Shankarsan Dash v. Union of India, (1991) 3 SCC 47. Para 7 of the said judgment is extracted below:- “7. It is not correct to say that if a number of vacancies are notified for appointment and adequate number of candidates are found fit, the successful candidates acquire an indefeasible right to be appointed which cannot be legitimately denied. Ordinarily the notification merely amounts to an invitation to qualified candidates to apply for recruitment and on their selection they do not acquire any right to the post. Unless the relevant recruitment rules so indicate, the State is under no legal duty to fill up all or any of the vacancies. However, it does not mean that the State has the licence of acting in an arbitrary manner. The decision not to fill up the vacancies has to be taken bona fide for appropriate reasons. And if the vacancies or any of them are filled up, the State is bound to respect the comparative merit of the candidates, as reflected at the recruitment test, and no discrimination can be permitted. This correct position has been consistently followed by this Court, and we do not find any discordant note in the decisions in State of Haryana v. Subash Chander Marwaha [(1974) 3 SCC 220: Neelima Shangla v. State of Haryana [(1986) 4 SCC 268, or Jatinder Kumar v. State of Punjab [(1985) 1 SCC 122.” 2026:UHC:258 8. Thus, there is no scope for interference. The writ petition is, however, disposed of with a direction to the Director, Women Empowerment and Child Development, Uttarakhand to complete the selection process within eight weeks from the date of presentation of certified copy of this order. It is made clear that the candidates, who applied pursuant to the earlier notification, should be exempted from making fresh application and only such candidates, who could not apply earlier, should be required to make fresh application. (Manoj Kumar Tiwari, J) 7.1.2026 Navin NAVEEN CHANDRA Digitally signed by NAVEEN CHANDRA DN: c=IN, o=HIGH COURT OF UTTARAKHAND, ou=HIGH COURT OF UTTARAKHAND, 2.5.4.20=3be23325146e76a0642bdf4943fb9046f487df006da82a131b b4e4403d3c0a15, postalCode=263001, st=UTTARAKHAND, serialNumber=18167EEFB5CA8CFFD421A103819DA875643AF56D653 D095C6ED9A86DAAB21CE5, cn=NAVEEN CHANDRA Date: 2026.01.07 17:43:17 +05'30'