CAT Orders Skilled-Grade Promotions From Two-Year Mark For 14 ITI/NCVT-Holding Chemical Process Workers Who Passed First Trade Test

The 14 applicants were appointed as Chemical Process Workers in the Semi-Skilled (CPW-SS) grade.

After completing two years’ service and passing the trade test, they were placed in the Skilled (CPW-SK) grade on 1 October 2014 or 29 December 2014, rather than on the individual dates they completed two years’ service.

The respondents stated that promotions were processed quarterly under the then-applicable practice and that the applicants’ placements preceded the Ordnance Factory Board’s instructions of 5 January 2015.

The applicants challenged the proceedings dated 15 March 2017 and sought placement from the date each completed two years’ service, with consequential benefits.

Under SRO 185 of 1994, as amended by SRO 34 of 1997, promotion from Semi-Skilled to Skilled grade required the prescribed minimum regular service and passing the trade test; the respondents treated two years’ service as eligibility, not as an automatic entitlement to immediate promotion.

OFB instructions dated 24 December 2013 provided for quarterly trade tests, which could be held before completion of the qualifying service to facilitate placement upon completion of that service, subject to the required conditions.

The Tribunal also applied the constitutional guarantee of equality under Article 14, finding that similarly situated employees could not be treated differently without justification.

The applicants cited Mehar Chand Polytechnic v. Anu Lamba and I.R. Coelho v. State of Tamil Nadu; the order does not set out or apply a specific rule from those decisions.

The Tribunal found that the 2013 OFB instructions already enabled the respondents to conduct trade tests before the end of the qualifying period, so that eligible employees could be placed in the Skilled grade upon completing two years’ service.

The applicants’ later placement resulted from the factory’s quarterly practice, which the respondents said had been adopted to address seniority concerns. The Tribunal held that this local practice could not override the OFB instructions to the applicants’ detriment.

It further found unequal treatment because, from 5 January 2015, the respondents granted placement to junior employees from the day after completion of two years’ service, while denying equivalent treatment to the applicants, who had completed the same qualifying service earlier.

It directed the respondents to promote applicants holding ITI/NCVT certificates who passed the trade test at the first opportunity to the CPW-SK grade, against existing vacancies, from completion of two years’ service as CPW-SS, with consequential and attendant benefits.

The exercise was to be completed within three months of receipt of a certified copy of the order; no costs were awarded.