New Delhi: Thinking that those vacant seats belonging to the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) are lying vacant, does not give the general category any reason to be happy, as according to the recent verdict of the Supreme Court it shall not be done.

In its statement, the apex court said that, "The general category candidates, who crack the competitive exams and are placed in the waiting list hold no stand against the seats reserved for the SCs or the STs even if there is no candidate to claim it."

The court in its fresh intervention in the "merit-versus-social justice" debate held that the merit list for general category is just for that category.

This ruling came during the case of appointment of district judges in the Delhi Judicial Services.

There were vacancies in the reserved category after filling up the 13 posts notified for general category, the Aggrieved candidates thus alleged that those on the top of the merit-cum-wait list be considered for these posts.

But unfortunately, their claim was rejected by a bench of CJI K G Balakrishnan and Justices Deepak Verma and B S Chauhan who described the move as 'patent illegal appointment' as against the notified strength.

Out of 20 posts for Delhi district judges announced in May 2007 - 13 for general, 7 for SC/STs, the general seats were although filled but two in SC and four in ST category were still lying vacant.

Justice B S Chauhan, while writing the judgment for a Bench comprising him, CJI K G Balakrishnan and Justice Deepak Verma sais that, "Any recruitment flouting the number of vacancies advertised for does not justifies the law and stands violative of Articles 14 and 16(1) of the Constitution, thus a nullity, in-executable and unenforceable in law."

"The process of selection comes to an end in case the vacancies notified stands filled up.To fill up the vacancies, the waiting list cannot be used as a reservoir," said the Bench.