Inordinate delay bars "fence-sitters" from challenging long-settled seniority lists to prevent unsettling established rights.

The Applicants, serving as Goods Loco Pilots in the West Central Railway, sought a Grade Pay of Rs. 2400 effective from 01.05.2010 or 14.03.2012

They further prayed for the modification of the seniority list dated 14.07.2015 to place them above certain private respondents

The Applicants relied on previous orders of the Tribunal in Hari Kesh Meena v. UOI (2015) and Pappu Lal Meena v. UOI (2021), wherein similarly situated employees were granted similar reliefs

The present Original Applications (OAs) were filed on 23.08.2021, approximately six years after the publication of the contested seniority list and a decade after the initial pay grievance

Records indicated that the Applicants had accepted promotions on 21.07.2020, which were based on the very seniority list they sought to challenge

1. Whether the Original Applications are barred by limitation under Section 21 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985, due to the inordinate delay in challenging the 2015 seniority list

2. Whether the Applicants, as "fence-sitters," are entitled to the benefit of judgments obtained by other diligent litigants years prior

Section 21 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985, which prescribes a one-year limitation period for filing applications and requires "sufficient cause" for condoning delays

Kuldip Chand v. Union of India Ors. (1995), which addresses when delay in challenging seniority may be overlooked

settled legal principle that "fence-sitters" who delay legal action until others succeed in court lose the right to agitate, particularly when unsettling long-standing seniority lists would have a "rippling effect" on the service cadre

The Tribunal observed that while the applicants in the cited 2015 and 2021 cases had approached the court within the limitation period or shortly after the cause of action, the current Applicants waited six years to challenge the 2015 seniority list

The Tribunal distinguished Kuldip Chand, noting that the Applicants were not "aggrieved" by a denial of promotion; rather, they had voluntarily accepted promotions in 2020 predicated on the 2015 seniority list they now sought to invalidate

The Bench reasoned that condoning such a delay would perpetually prevent the seniority list from settling and would unfairly prejudice other employees whose promotions and benefits were already established

The court concluded that the Applicants failed to provide a reasonable justification for the decade-long delay regarding pay or the six-year delay regarding seniority

It ruled that the Applicants could not take advantage of their "fence-sitting" status to unsettle settled service matters years later

Consequently, all 12 Original Applications and the associated Miscellaneous Applications for condonation of delay were dismissed

No order as to costs was made