Apex Court in Shankarsan Dash v. Union of India (1991) 3 SCC 47, states that:
“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. Subhash Chander Marwaha, Neelima Shangla v. State of Haryana, or Jatendra Kumar v. State of Punjab”.
A simple reading of the above paragraph would reveal that though it is up to the employer or the State to fill up all the notified vacancies or to keep all of them or any of them vacant but it does not mean that the employer/State can act arbitrarily in not filling up those posts and the decision not to fill up the vacancies has to be a bona fide one supported by appropriate reasons.
The relevant rules of 2007, do not oblige the State to fill up all the vacancies advertised.
