Administrative delay in relieving an employee cannot deny seniority when promotion acceptance is formally communicated.

The applicant, initially a Personal Assistant, was promoted to Assistant Programme Coordinator (APC) via a DPC held on 09.05.2006

Although she accepted the promotion on 23.05.2006, NCERT officially recorded her promotion date as 20.06.2006—the day she was relieved from her previous post—placing her junior to Respondents 3–6, whose promotions to Section Officer (SO) were retrospectively antedated to 25.05.2006

In February 2017, NCERT conducted a DPC for the post of Under Secretary (a post filled by SOs and APCs with 7 years' service) without preparing a combined eligibility list or correcting the applicant's seniority

Consequently, the private respondents were promoted or empaneled ahead of her

1. Whether the respondents' failure to prepare a combined eligibility list for promotion from two different feeder cadres (SO and APC) violated statutory guidelines

2. Whether the applicant's promotion date should be reckoned from the date of acceptance/order rather than the date of physical joining, given the delay was purely administrative

3. Whether the applicant is entitled to a Review DPC for the post of Under Secretary following her retirement during the pendency of the litigation

DOP&T O.M. dated 11.11.2010, which mandates the preparation of a combined eligibility list when promotions are made from multiple feeder cadres without a prescribed quota

Para 17.11 of DOP&T O.M. dated 10.04.1989 regarding the effective date of promotion

Principles governing Review DPCs as outlined in Swamy’s Complete Manual on Establishment and Administration, which allow for review when material facts or records are omitted or procedural irregularities occur

Constitutional guarantees of equality and fair consideration under Articles 14 and 16

The Tribunal found that since both SOs and APCs are feeder cadres for Under Secretary without a fixed quota, the omission of a finalized combined eligibility list was a "root" procedural defect

The court reasoned that the applicant could not be penalized for administrative delays in relieving her from her old post after she had already accepted the promotion in May 2006

The court noted "hostile discrimination," as the respondents had granted retrospective antedated promotion to Respondents 3–6 while denying similar logic to the applicant

It rejected the limitation plea, holding that the cause of action was recurring and crystallized only when the 2017 DPC promoted her juniors

Applying the 'Review DPC' doctrine, the court determined that a fresh consideration was necessary to rectify the failure to maintain a joint eligibility list and the error in the applicant’s effective promotion date

It directed the respondents to: (i) treat the applicant’s APC promotion as effective from 22.05.2006 for seniority purposes; (ii) prepare a proper combined eligibility list for SOs and APCs; and (iii) convene a Review DPC for the post of Under Secretary

As the applicant had retired, the court ordered that if found fit, she be granted notional promotion from the date her junior was promoted, with consequential revision of retiral benefits and pension arrears, though without actual arrears of salary for the period she did not serve in the higher post