Imagine two clerks in the same government department, both missing the same educational qualification prescribed for promotion. One is granted a relaxation and promoted. The other, doing the same job under the same rules, is denied the relaxation and passed over. No new rule was framed, no fresh policy was issued — the employer simply chose to treat one case differently from the other. This is precisely the kind of situation that recently drew judicial censure, with a court holding that denying a qualification relaxation to an employee despite granting it to similarly situated employees is arbitrary and unsustainable in law. It sounds like a narrow service dispute. It is actually a live illustration of one of the most important ideas in Indian constitutional law: that arbitrariness, by itself, can violate the guarantee of equality.