Higher-ranked employees unlawfully bypassed for elevation are entitled to equivalent notional promotion.

Respondent No. 1 and private respondents 5 and 6 were appointed as Marketing Intelligence Inspectors following a 2009 selection process.

In 2011, four Marketing Intelligence Inspectors, including respondents 5 and 6, were selected for elevation to Inspector of Supplies posts; they were later regularised in those posts with effect from 3 September 2012.

Respondent No. 1, who ranked above them in the merit list for Marketing Intelligence Inspector, was not selected.

Following an earlier direction to consider his claim, the State rejected it.

The Single Judge then directed that he receive notional promotion to Inspector of Supplies from 3 September 2012, notwithstanding that he had separately been promoted with effect from 25 September 2020.

The State appealed.

1. Whether the Single Judge erred in directing notional retrospective promotion for Respondent No. 1 from 3 September 2012, when the applicable service framework contained no provision for promotion to Inspector of Supplies.

2. Whether Respondent No. 1 could claim parity with respondents 5 and 6, who were selected for elevation despite ranking below him in the merit list, notwithstanding the State’s contention that they belonged to reserved categories.

The Odisha Civil Supplies (Method of Recruitment and Condition of Services of Inspector of Supplies) Rules, 2016 came into force on 11 August 2016; before then, recruitment and service conditions were governed by the Resolution dated 21 July 2009, which contained no provision for promotion or elevation to Inspector of Supplies.

In Nirmal Chandra Sinha v. Union of India, (2008) 14 SCC 29, the Supreme Court held that promotion ordinarily takes effect from the date it is granted, not from the date a vacancy arises or a post is created; the High Court considered that decision in the context of the State’s challenge.

The judgment further held that, where the Selection Committee selected lower-ranked candidates for elevation without an identified rule or recorded reason, the authority’s failure to consider the higher-ranked Respondent No. 1 was unlawful.

The Court found that the 2011 Selection Committee proceeding gave no reason for elevating the four Marketing Intelligence Inspectors and that the applicable 2009 Resolution provided no promotion mechanism; the 2016 Rules came into force only later.

The selected candidates had ranked below Respondent No. 1 in the merit list, and the Court found the State’s unexplained selection of them, while excluding him, illegal.

In those circumstances, the Single Judge did not err in granting Respondent No. 1 the same notional benefit from the date the other candidates received it.

The Court therefore found no basis to interfere with that relief.