MP HC Rejects Clerk’s 1996 Treatment Organizer Promotion Bid: Post Was Outside His Cadre, And He Had Declined UDC Promotion

The petitioner, appointed as Assistant Grade-III in 1984, sought promotion to Treatment Organizer from 16 August 1996, the date respondent No. 4 was promoted.

He claimed to be senior and relied on a gradation list and a representation seeking promotion.

The State opposed the claim on the ground that the petitioner belonged to the ministerial cadre, whereas Treatment Organizer was a post in a separate, non-ministerial promotional channel.

It also stated that the petitioner had been promoted to Upper Division Clerk but declined to join.

The Court applied the Madhya Pradesh Health and Family Welfare Department Class-III Recruitment Rules, 1989.

Under the ministerial rules, the Lower Division Clerk’s promotional channel included Upper Division Clerk, Steward, Cashier, or Computer.

Under the non-ministerial rules, a T.B. Health Visitor could be promoted to Treatment Organizer.

The Court distinguished *Narender Chadha & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors.*, (1986) 1 S.C.R. 211, which the petitioner invoked for the proposition that long service in a post may warrant consideration of benefits attached to it through relaxation of recruitment rules.

The petitioner’s substantive post placed him in the ministerial cadre, whose prescribed promotional channel did not include Treatment Organizer.

That post belonged to the separate non-ministerial channel for T.B. Health Visitors.

The Court also noted the State’s assertion that the petitioner had declined promotion to Upper Division Clerk, a post within his own channel, while seeking promotion to a post for which he was not eligible.

It therefore found *Narender Chadha* distinguishable and the petitioner’s claim unsustainable.

The petitioner’s claim for promotion to Treatment Organizer from 16 August 1996, with consequential benefits, was not granted.

The Court dismissed the petition.