Higher Marks Not Enough: Madhya Pradesh High Court Backs Selection Based On Residence

The Madhya Pradesh High Court has refused to interfere with the appointment of a Mini Anganwadi worker, holding that residence criteria and long years of service cannot be lightly disturbed, even where a competing candidate may have secured higher marks.

The division bench of Justice Vivek Rusia and Justice Pradeep Mittal dismissed a writ appeal filed by Smt. Sursari Pandey, affirming the findings of a single judge and upholding the appointment of Smt. Pooja Pandey, who has been serving in the position for over sixteen years.

The dispute arose from a selection process initiated for the post of Mini Anganwadi Karyakarta at Dhutpura Unmukt village in Sidhi district. Pooja Pandey was appointed to the post in July 2010 and has continued to discharge her duties since then. Sursari Pandey challenged this appointment before the Collector, contending that she had secured higher marks and was wrongly denied selection. Her appeal was initially allowed by the Collector in 2012, and the decision was affirmed by the Commissioner in 2013.

However, the matter took a different turn when Pooja Pandey approached the High court by way of a writ petition. An interim order protected her appointment, allowing her to continue working during the pendency of proceedings. Eventually, in July 2024, the single bench allowed her petition and set aside the orders of the Collector and the Commissioner, holding that the appellant had failed to establish her eligibility under the applicable criteria.

Before the division bench, counsel for the appellant, Shri Sandeep Kumar Sen, argued that the single judge had failed to consider material documents demonstrating that the appellant was indeed a resident of Dhutpura Unmukt. He submitted that both the Collector and the Commissioner had correctly appreciated the evidence and had found in favour of the appellant, who had also secured higher marks in the selection process.

Opposing the appeal, Government Advocate Shri Piyush Jain and counsel for the private respondent, Ms. Warija Ghildiyal, supported the findings of the single bench. They argued that the appellant had not produced any proof of residence in Dhutpura Unmukt at the time of application and that the selection process clearly required candidates to be residents of the concerned village.

The court, after examining the records, found that in the appellant’s application form as well as in her husband’s Parivar Patra, the place of residence was mentioned as Dhutpura, while the Anganwadi Centre in question was specifically located in Dhutpura Unmukt. It noted that “the appellant did not file any document along with the application form to establish that she is a resident of the village Dhutpura Unmukt,” and therefore the authorities were justified in rejecting her candidature despite her higher marks.

The bench also took note of an additional discrepancy highlighted by the respondent’s counsel, namely that the appellant had applied for the post of Sahayika, whereas the recruitment pertained to the position of Mini Anganwadi Karyakarta. This, the court observed, further weakened the appellant’s claim to the post.

Significantly, the court placed considerable weight on the length of service rendered by the selected candidate. It observed that Pooja Pandey had been working on the post for the past sixteen years under the protection of interim orders and that there had been no complaint regarding her performance. In such circumstances, the bench held that “such an appointment should not have been disturbed after a long lapse of time.”

The court also noted that the appellant had by now crossed the age limit for appointment, rendering any interference at this stage both impractical and inequitable. Emphasising the need for finality in service matters, particularly at the grassroots level, the bench concluded that the findings of the single judge did not suffer from any legal infirmity warranting appellate interference.

The appeal was dismissed as devoid of merit.

Case Title: Smt. Sursari Pandey v. The State of Madhya Pradesh and Others

Date of Order: March 23, 2026

Bench: Justice Vivek Rusia and Justice Pradeep Mittal