Service law – Promotion – Counting of deputation service period for promotion – Respondent repatriated to parent department after his deputation in appellant-authority for
6 years – Respondent re-joined the appellant on direct recruitment basis to the post of Manager (Technical) after a gap of 1 year – Thereafter, the appellant-Authority invited applications from the Managers for promotion to the post of Deputy General Manager – Application of the respondent rejected due to minimum experience criteria of 4 years not being met – Challenge to – Tribunal directed the Authority to count the deputation service period for promotion and pursuant thereto, the respondent was appointed – High Court upheld the said order of tribunal – Correctness: Held: Past services can be taken into consideration only when the Rules permit the same or where a special situation exists, which would entitle the employee to obtain such benefit of past service – Circular would not confer any legal right on the respondent for consideration for promotion to the post of Deputy General Manager (Technical) with effect from the date from which the tribunal directed the appellant-authority to promote
To be read as ‘National Highways Authority of India’. the respondent to the said post – Repatriation of the respondent back to his parent Department was on full time basis and unconnected with the appellant-authority – Respondent was a fresh and new recruit into the service of the appellant-authority directly to the post of the Manager (Technical), totally unrelated/unconnected to his previous service with the appellant-authority, which transaction was complete and reached finality when the respondent was repatriated to his parent department – As he had been repatriated to his parent department more than a year prior to such permanent appointment, it cannot be termed ‘absorption’ which finds mention in the Clause 6 of the Circular – Respondent does not stand in the same queue in which other persons were, as they were working with the appellant-authority at the relevant time – Object of Clause 6 was to obliterate the difference between a person working on deputation and a person regularly working – Respondent was absent from the service of the appellant-authority not for any of the specific purposes, but on a permanent basis-being sent back to his parent department – In ‘fulfilling administrative formalities-submission/ acceptance of technical resignation/retirement etc’ would not cover situation of respondent – Decision taken by the appellant-authority not to grant promotion to the respondent to be upheld – Respondent could not have been considered for promotion from the date of issuance of circular inviting applications to the posts of Deputy General Manager as per the direction of the tribunal since he had not completed four years on the post of the Manager (Technical) after having joined pursuant to direct recruitment on such post, on which service could only be reckoned from date of his appointment to the post – Impugned Order as also tribunal’s order cannot be sustained and set aside – Respondent to be considered for promotion in terms of the Recruitment Regulations and the Circular. [Paras 23-29]
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Headnotes prepared by: Nidhi Jain. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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