Overview
- The Supreme Court allowed the appeal of Gajula Thirupathi and on June 8 set aside the Telangana Recruitment Board’s cancellation, directing that his appointment as a police constable be processed.
- The bench held that a physical relationship between two consenting unmarried adults cannot by itself be used to draw an adverse inference about character or suitability for public service.
- The court ruled that a Lok Adalat compromise or the complainant’s decision not to pursue a case is not automatically an admission of guilt and criticised the board’s assumption as baseless.
- Justices Manmohan and Manoj Misra said authorities must preserve the presumption of innocence and may only deny appointment when there is objective material proving both that an offence occurred and that the candidate is credibly linked to it.
- The judgment signals broader change by urging institutions to be sensitive to modern social realities and it may curb the use of vague moral judgments in future public-sector and disciplined-force recruitments.