EPFO Employee Can’t Backdate Regular Supervisor Promotion To 2009, CAT Says Exam List Could Not Cover Later Vacancies

The applicant, an Upper Division Clerk in the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), qualified in the 2004 departmental examination for promotion to Section Supervisor under the examination quota and was placed at serial no. 17.

He was promoted to that post on an ad hoc basis from 5 March 2009, but was not regularly promoted under the examination quota because the available vacancies were fewer than his position in the list.

He was later regularly promoted under the seniority-cum-suitability quota with effect from 1 October 2020.

Following litigation concerning the operation of departmental-examination select lists, EPFO issued a communication dated 13 April 2017 directing regional offices to issue show-cause notices to certain examination-quota promotees.

The applicant challenged that communication insofar as it applied to Rajasthan and sought regularisation from 5 March 2009, or alternatively from the date of vacancy.

The Tribunal considered the Ahmedabad Bench decision on the select list, the subsequent appellate proceedings, and the Jaipur Bench decision in OA No. 295/2020.

Section 19 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985, provides the basis for an application to the Tribunal.

Under the EPFO Section Supervisor (Head Clerk) (Regional Office) Recruitment Rules, 1992, recruitment to the post included a departmental-examination promotion quota; the Tribunal treated that route as limited to the vacancies available when the examination was notified and held that the resulting select list could not be operated indefinitely for later vacancies.

The Tribunal relied on the Ahmedabad Bench decision in OA No. 263/2010, as upheld by the Gujarat High Court and the Supreme Court, for that principle.

It also applied the DoPT Office Memorandum dated 3 April 2013: ad hoc service does not confer a claim to regular appointment or count towards seniority or eligibility for promotion.

The Jaipur Bench decision in OA No. 295/2020 was distinguished on its facts and was not treated as displacing the rule concerning the limited operation of the examination select list.

The applicant’s examination rank was beyond the vacancies available when the 2004 examination was held; accordingly, the Tribunal found that he could not claim regular promotion against later vacancies by relying on that examination’s select list.

His 2009 promotion was expressly ad hoc, and its terms excluded that service from counting towards seniority or regular promotion.

The Tribunal further noted that he had already received regular promotion under the seniority-cum-suitability quota from 1 October 2020 and had not challenged that promotion; the 2017 communication directed the issue of show-cause notices and did not itself revert him.

The Jaipur Bench ruling did not alter the applicable principle and concerned different circumstances.

It found no illegality in the respondents’ action, dismissed the OA for lack of merit, and made no order as to costs.