A rule preserving absorbed Tribunal employees’ seniority from promotion is not arbitrary.

The petitioner joined the High Court establishment as a Translator in 2000 and was successively promoted, ultimately to Assistant Registrar in 2015.

He was promoted to Deputy Registrar on 1 September 2023.

The second respondent, formerly employed by the Himachal Pradesh Administrative Tribunal, joined the High Court establishment as an Assistant Registrar after the Tribunal’s abolition and was promoted to Deputy Registrar on 5 January 2023.

In 2024, the High Court amended the 2015 Rules to prescribe the seniority of absorbed Tribunal employees, including protection of seniority in a promotional post from the date of promotion.

A revised seniority list placed the petitioner in the Assistant Registrar cadre; his objections were rejected.

He sought to invalidate the amendment and seniority list and to be treated as a Deputy Registrar.

The respondents maintained that his promotion had been withdrawn because the Assistant Registrar quota under the prescribed promotion rotation had already been exhausted.

Whether Rule 10(e), inserted by the 22nd Amendment to the 2015 Rules, was arbitrary, unconstitutional, or otherwise invalid insofar as it protected the promotional seniority of absorbed Tribunal employees from the date of promotion.

Whether the final seniority list and rejection of the petitioner’s objections were liable to be quashed, and whether he was entitled to be treated as a Deputy Registrar.

The court applied Rule 10(e) of the Himachal Pradesh High Court Officers and Members of the Staff (Recruitment, Promotion, Conditions of Service, Conduct and Appeal) Rules, 2015, as inserted by the 22nd Amendment Rules, 2024.

The provision placed absorbed Tribunal employees below the junior-most High Court employee holding the relevant post when they joined, while preserving their inter se Tribunal seniority and fixing seniority in a subsequently obtained promotional post from the date of promotion.

The court also considered the Rules’ prescribed rotational promotion sequence for Deputy Registrar—one Secretary, one Court Master, one Secretary, one Court Master, and one Assistant Registrar—described by the respondents as a 2:2:1 ratio.

No judicial precedents were cited.

The court held that Rule 10(e) protected existing High Court employees by placing absorbed Tribunal employees at the bottom of the relevant cadre upon joining; its protection of an absorbed employee’s later promotion did not prejudice an incumbent already holding that promotional post.

The second respondent’s promotion to Deputy Registrar predated the petitioner’s, was not challenged, and was therefore protected under the amendment.

The petitioner had also not objected to the first tentative seniority list placing the second respondent above him, which the court treated as acquiescence in that placement.

Further, the petitioner did not challenge the withdrawal of his own promotion, and the High Court’s assertion that the Assistant Registrar promotion slot had already been exhausted was not disputed.

The court therefore found no ground to invalidate the final seniority list or the rejection of objections.

It dismissed the writ petition, finding no merit in the requested relief of treatment as a Deputy Registrar.

However, because the petitioner’s retiral dues had been considered on the basis that he superannuated as a Deputy Registrar under interim orders, that benefit was not to be rescinded; his retiral dues were to be paid on that basis.