Financial upgradation cannot be deferred beyond subsisting penalties using uncommunicated adverse entries or periods treated as duty.

The applicant, a Delhi Police Constable subsequently holding the rank of Assistant Sub-Inspector, was appointed on 1 May 1982. Disciplinary proceedings arising from an incident dated 9–10 September 1996 culminated in forfeiture of two years’ approved service, which was later reduced to forfeiture of one year’s approved service permanently by order dated 7 March 2007.

The applicant’s suspension and enquiry-related periods from 24 February 2003 to 3 January 2007 and from 2 April 2007 to 6 December 2007 were subsequently treated as “spent on duty”.

The applicant was granted the first ACP with effect from 17 August 2003 and the second ACP with effect from 10 May 2010. He was found unfit for the third MACP in 2015 and 2016 and was ultimately granted the third MACP with effect from 9 May 2016, after deferment of four years and eight days based on his service record.

He challenged the deferment, contending that only the one-year forfeiture could be excluded and that his second ACP and third MACP ought to have been granted in 2007 and 2013, respectively.

Whether the respondents were justified in deferring the applicant’s second ACP until 10 May 2010 on the basis of his service record and disciplinary history, or whether deferment could extend only to the period of one year’s forfeited approved service.

Whether the deferment of the applicant’s third MACP until 9 May 2016 was sustainable, particularly where it relied on adverse or “unsatisfactory” assessments, periods treated as “spent on duty,” and the subsisting one-year forfeiture.

The Tribunal applied the ACP and MACP schemes governed by the DoP&T Office Memoranda dated 9 August 1999, 19 May 2009 and 9 September 2010.

Under Union of India v. M.V. Mohanan Nair, (2020) 5 SCC 421, financial upgradation is not an automatic entitlement upon completion of 12, 24 or 30 years of service; it is subject to the eligibility conditions and satisfactory service record prescribed by the governing schemes.

Under Dev Dutt v. Union of India, (2008) 8 SCC 725, Abhijit Ghosh Dastidar v. Union of India, (2009) 16 SCC 146, and Sukhdev Singh v. Union of India, (2013) 9 SCC 566, adverse or below- benchmark service entries must be communicated to the employee and cannot be relied upon to deny a service benefit if the employee was not given an opportunity to represent against them.

The Tribunal further applied the principle that the effect of a disciplinary penalty must remain confined to the penalty actually imposed and cannot be enlarged through collateral consequences; periods expressly treated as “spent on duty” cannot simultaneously be used as adverse service material to defer financial upgradation.

The one-year forfeiture was therefore required to be excluded in reckoning qualifying service, consistently with Point of Doubt No. 7 of the DoP&T Office Memorandum dated 9 September 2010.

The Tribunal held that completion of the prescribed service period by itself did not create an unconditional right to ACP or MACP, since eligibility also depended on the applicable service-record requirements under the ACP/MACP schemes.

However, the respondents’ deferment of the third MACP substantially relied on “unsatisfactory” assessments, the DI Secret List and adverse entries without demonstrating that these materials had been communicated to the applicant.

Such uncommunicated entries could not lawfully form the basis for denial or deferment of financial upgradation.

Further, the periods of suspension and enquiry that had been expressly regularised as “spent on duty” could not be treated simultaneously as adverse material against the applicant.

At the same time, the Tribunal declined to disregard the surviving penalty of forfeiture of one year’s approved service.

It concluded that only that one-year period could legitimately be excluded from the applicant’s qualifying service; the additional deferment of four years and eight days was impermissible to the extent based on uncommunicated entries or periods treated as spent on duty.

The deferment of the applicant’s second ACP and third MACP was set aside to the extent that it exceeded the exclusion of the one year of forfeited approved service imposed by order dated 7 March 2007.

The respondents were directed to re-fix the dates of the second ACP and third MACP by excluding only that one-year forfeiture, ignoring periods treated as “spent on duty,” and disregarding uncommunicated adverse entries, with consequential monetary benefits and arrears payable accordingly.

The exercise was to be completed within three months of receipt of the certified order.

Interest and costs were denied.