Employees with a departmental promotion avenue are not entitled to compete for other departments’ promotional quotas.

The 27 applicants were Railway Trackmen appointed between 2008 and 2013 and posted in the Dhanbad Division. They challenged notifications inviting applications for selection to Goods Guard, Office Clerk Grade-II, and Station Master posts, arguing that they should be eligible to compete under Paragraph 189 of the Indian Railway Establishment Manual (IREM), because their cadre lacked a regular promotional avenue. They sought to have the notifications set aside or modified to permit their applications.

The respondents opposed the claim, contending that the Trackman cadre had a promotional hierarchy following Railway Board letter RBE No. 91/2012, and that eligibility was governed by the relevant recruitment rules and quotas. The Tribunal permitted the applicants to proceed jointly under Rule 4(5)(a) of the CAT (Procedure) Rules, 1987.

1. Whether the applicants, as Trackmen, were entitled under Paragraph 189 of the IREM to participate in the notified selections for Goods Guard, Office Clerk Grade-II, and Station Master posts

2. Whether excluding Trackmen from those selection processes was arbitrary, discriminatory, or contrary to Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution

Paragraph 189 of the IREM, Volume I (1988), provides for earmarking vacancies for certain Group ‘D’ railway servants for whom no regular avenue of promotion exists; its application is conditional on the absence of such an avenue.

The Tribunal relied on Railway Board letter RBE No. 91/2012, which restructured the Trackman cadre and established promotional levels within the Engineering Department.

It also applied the principle that an employee may have a right to fair consideration under applicable rules, but no vested right to promotion to a particular post or to a promotional channel outside those rules; the prescription of feeder categories and departmental quotas is generally a matter of administrative policy.

In support, it cited Union of India v. Pushpa Rani, (2008) 9 SCC 242, on the executive’s role in framing recruitment and promotional arrangements, and Bihar State Electricity Board v. Dharamdeo Das, 2024 SCC OnLine SC 1768.

The Tribunal held that Paragraph 189 did not assist the applicants because, after the 2012 restructuring, Trackmen had a multi-tiered promotional channel within the Engineering Department. It therefore found that the applicants did not fall within the category of Group ‘D’ employees for whom no regular avenue of promotion existed.

The Tribunal further reasoned that eligibility for the challenged posts was governed by the applicable recruitment rules and departmental quotas. Since the applicants had not established any legal, constitutional, or statutory infirmity in restricting the selections to specified categories, their exclusion was not shown to be arbitrary or discriminatory.

The Original Application was dismissed as devoid of merit, with no order as to costs.