Civil service aspirants in Manipur feel that the protracted judicial delays in recruitment-related cases have emboldened the Manipur Public Service Commission to function with no accountabilities. For almost a decade, the recruitment processes of the Commission have been repeatedly under judicial scrutiny. The 2016 Manipur Civil Services Combined Competitive Examination was quashed by the High Court of Manipur for serious irregularities — a ruling later upheld by the Supreme Court in November 2019, which directed the Commission to re-conduct the mains examination within four months.
Controversy, however, started with the appointment of 43 SDCs beyond the notified vacancies, thus raising fresh questions of legality and fairness. All this was compounded by the fiasco in the 2025 mains examination, wherein candidates received the wrong question papers, with strident criticism over the Commission’s administrative lapses. These controversies appear to form a distressing pattern: at each event of the detection of irregularities, litigation follows, but by the time the judgments are delivered, newer issues have already erupted.
Lead petitioner for the continuing 43 SDC case, Thounaojam Luwangamba, said that for many of Manipur’s youth, “justice delayed has become justice denied.” “Every time the court delays, MPSC learns that procedural time is its shield. The law is not weak, but justice has been painfully slow,” he remarked. He mentioned how the 2016 case took almost six years to conclude and thereby saw hundreds of aspirants age out of eligibility or give up hope. “The cost of justice-in both time and money-has been borne entirely by the powerless,” he added.
He said the prolonged pace of judicial decisions has entrenched a view in MPSC that oversight can be outlasted. “When accountability is postponed, irresponsibility becomes policy. The Commission now operates with the confidence that petitions and stays will drag on for years,” he said. Legal observers and aspirant groups say delayed adjudication has de facto legitimized malpractice among recruitment agencies. “A quashed exam after six years is no longer justice, it’s post-mortem paperwork,” said a former civil service candidate. The aspirant community contends that the Commission’s repeated lapses — from the 43 SDC appointments to the 2025 paper mix-up — demonstrate its confidence that slow courts would dilute the outrage over its missteps and postpone corrective action.
Behind each case lies a growing human cost. Candidates affected by the 2016 litigation reportedly spent years and their savings pursuing justice. Those now facing the fallout of the 2025 fiasco fear the same drawn-out process. Legal experts caution that judicial inertia risks damaging public confidence in the judiciary itself. “The High Court is the last refuge for citizens failed by administrative bodies. When that refuge becomes synonymous with delay, cynicism replaces trust,” said a retired senior advocate.
Civil society organisations and petitioners are demanding fast-track mechanisms to clear the backlog of recruitment-related litigations. The proposal includes setting up fast-track benches for disputed recruitments, time-bound disposal of petitions involving large groups of candidates, monitoring mechanisms to ensure compliance of previous orders, and public disclosure of long-pending cases to restore transparency and faith. “These steps will send a clear message that delay will no longer shield inefficiency — that the law will move as swiftly as the injustice it seeks to correct,” said Luwangamba.
Undeterred by the setbacks, Manipur’s aspirants continue their preparation for competitive examinations. But many warn that institutional patience is wearing thin. “The 2016 judgment was supposed to clean up the system. Instead, MPSC repeated its mistakes,” said an aspirant from Imphal East. Analysts caution that judicial delay, when coupled with administrative complacency, amounts to complicity by omission. The pending MPSC cases represent not only legal disputes but also a test of the judiciary’s moral authority.
Now is the moment of truth for the High Court of Manipur. The issue ceases to be simply one of irregular examinations; rather, the aim has to be the restoration of public faith in the rule of law. “The problem isn’t a lack of law, it’s a lack of urgency,” Luwangamba said. “When justice sleeps, misgovernance thrives.” He demanded that the High Court address this mounting backlog of MPSC litigations as a constitutional emergency and deliver time-bound verdicts. “For a generation of Manipuri youth who have lost years to negligence and silence, the message must finally change: Justice will not only be done, it will be done in time,” he concluded.