Employees granted notional promotion are not entitled to arrears absent actual performance of higher duties.

The applicant and Tinku Kumar Choudhary were selected through the same RRB recruitment process.

Following an error in the assignment of seniority, the applicant was placed below his proper position and his junior was promoted earlier.

After the applicant obtained orders directing consideration of his representations, the respondents corrected his seniority and notionally fixed his pay at par with his junior from 16 May 2011, but denied arrears for the period before his actual promotion.

The applicant sought those arrears before the Tribunal.

The respondents relied on Para 228(i) of the Indian Railway Establishment Manual (IREM), Vol. I, and the principle that arrears are not payable for a higher post not actually performed.

1. Whether the applicant was entitled to arrears for the period in which his pay was notionally fixed at par with his junior, before his actual promotion, despite not having worked in the higher post.

2. Whether the applicant had established that he actually discharged the duties and responsibilities of the higher post during the period for which arrears were claimed.

Para 228(i) of the IREM, Vol. I, addresses promotion overlooked due to administrative error, including an error in relative seniority. It permits correction of seniority and pro forma fixation of pay in the higher grade, but does not provide arrears for the earlier period when the employee did not shoulder the higher post’s duties and responsibilities.

In Union of India & Anr. v. Tarsem Lal & Ors., (2006) 10 SCC 145, the Supreme Court considered Para 228 and held that arrears are not sustainable where the employee did not actually work in the promotional post.

Paluru Ramakrishnaiah & Ors. v. Union of India & Anr., (1989) 2 SCC 541, similarly establishes that notional promotion may support pay refixation, but not arrears for a period in which the employee did not perform the higher post’s duties.

The respondents had corrected the applicant’s seniority and granted notional pay fixation from 16 May 2011, thereby providing the consequential benefit contemplated by Para 228(i).

The applicant was actually promoted as Office Superintendent only on 31 January 2015, while his junior had been promoted earlier; however, the applicant produced no order showing that he had been posted to, or had performed the duties of, the higher post during the claimed period.

Applying Para 228(i) and the cited Supreme Court decisions, the Tribunal held that notional fixation did not entitle him to arrears absent actual performance of the higher duties.

It dismissed the Original Application without costs.