CAT Upholds 2013 IPS Allotment Year For Promotee Appointed Under 2016 Select List, Unlike Juniors’ 2015 List

The applicant was appointed as a Deputy Superintendent of Police in Karnataka in 2006.

The Karnataka State Administrative Tribunal directed that his rank, seniority and legally available consequential benefits be determined as if he had served continuously in the Home Department from 2006.

He was subsequently appointed to the Indian Police Service (IPS) against the 2016 Select List.

By order dated 25 August 2022, the Union Government assigned him the year of allotment 2013, based on ten years of qualifying service.

He challenged that allotment, seeking 2012—the year assigned to certain juniors inducted against the 2015 Select List—but did not challenge either the 2015 Select List or his appointment under the 2016 Select List.

The Tribunal applied Rule 3(3)(ii) of the Indian Police Service (Regulation of Seniority) Rules, 1988, as amended on 18 April 2012.

Under that provision, a promotee officer’s year of allotment is determined by reference to the year of the Select List against which the officer was appointed and the prescribed weightage for qualifying continuous service in the State Police Service.

The amended formula gives a minimum weightage of three years for service up to twelve years; the Tribunal treated ten years of qualifying service as attracting that minimum.

The Tribunal also considered the constitutional equality principles under Articles 14 and 16, the Karnataka State Administrative Tribunal’s order restoring the applicant’s lien and consequential benefits, and Balraj Singh v. Dr. Ashok Khemka; it held that none displaced the statutory calculation based on the actual Select List under which the applicant was appointed.

The Tribunal held that the applicable amended rule required the allotment to be calculated by reference to the applicant’s actual appointment against the 2016 Select List.

With ten years of qualifying service, he received the minimum three-year weightage, producing 2013; the Tribunal found no computational error.

It further held that the different allotment years followed from the different Select Lists and that the earlier State proposal and the Karnataka Tribunal’s consequential-benefits direction did not themselves establish an IPS allotment year or alter the Select List year.

Because the applicant had not challenged his 2016 Select List appointment or the relevant 2015 Select List, the Tribunal would not determine his claim as though he had been appointed against the earlier list in a challenge confined to the 2022 allotment order.

It found no error in assigning him 2013 under Rule 3(3)(ii) of the 1988 Rules, as amended, and dismissed the Original Application.

Pending miscellaneous applications were disposed of, with no order as to costs.