Discuss the principle that judicial relief operates *inter partes* and prospectively. How does it balance individual justice with administrative finality in public employment?

In November 2026, the Supreme Court clarified its 11 March 2026 OBC creamy layer judgment. It said the judgment "determined only the rights of the parties" before it and does not reopen concluded appointments, seniority or service allocations [1]. The case shows a settled principle. Judicial relief binds the litigants (inter partes) and, where the Court so limits it, operates prospectively. This balances justice against finality; it does not deny justice.

The Principle Explained

• Inter partes: operative relief flows to those who approached the Court. Non-parties get no automatic remedy. The petitioners were held to be non-creamy layer and received reservation with consequential placement and post allotment [2].
• Prospective operation: courts may limit how far back a ruling reaches, to avoid upheaval. The idea draws on prospective overruling (Golaknath, 1967).
• Pending vs. concluded processes: the ruling governs the still-pending CSE 2025 service allocation. It does not touch finalised selections [1].

Serving Individual Justice

• Litigants wrongly excluded under the 2004 salary-based letter got full relief. The Court held that letter discriminatory [2].
• Supernumerary posts (extra posts beyond the sanctioned strength) give relief without displacing any serving officer [2].
• Applying the ruling to CSE 2025 shows that corrected law governs wherever the process is still open. The Court found "no reasonable justification to defer" [1].

Protecting Administrative Finality

• Seniority decides promotions. Revising cadre lists years later would set off fresh rounds of litigation.
• It protects the legitimate expectations of officers who were never heard in the case, in line with audi alteram partem (the right to be heard).
• It keeps UPSC–DoPT allocation predictable and stable.

The Residual Fairness Gap

• Earlier non-litigants were judged by the same flawed test and get nothing. The line falls at a procedural stage, not at who was wronged. This creates horizontal inequity.
• The root cause is executive. Post-equivalence (matching posts to government grades) was done in 2017 only for PSUs, banks and insurers [3]. Universities and private employers were left uncovered.

Overall, the inter partes and prospective doctrine reconciles the equality guarantee of Articles 14 and 16 with the stability that public services need. As a way forward, DoPT could voluntarily extend supernumerary-post relief to similarly placed earlier candidates. It could also finish the post-equivalence exercise, so that correct classification under Article 16(4) does not depend on going to court. That would serve Indra Sawhney's aim of directing reservation to the genuinely backward.