Non-attendance at posting counselling cannot defeat an otherwise established right to promotion.

The Petitioner was serving as a Level-V(B) Senior Teacher and possessed the requisite graduate, training, and OTET qualifications.

Pursuant to the District Education Officer’s promotion order dated 8 July 2022, he was selected for promotion to Level-IV Graduate Teacher and placed at Serial No. 61. The selected candidates were directed to attend counselling on 15 July 2022 for choosing their place of posting and to join on 16 July 2022.

The Petitioner was on sanctioned leave due to illness from 21 June 2022 to 31 July 2022 and consequently could not attend the counselling. His juniors who attended the counselling received promotional orders, whereas he was not initially issued a promotional order.

After rejoining on 1 August 2022, he sought promotion with effect from 16 July 2022. Pursuant to earlier proceedings, he was granted only prospective promotion from 11 June 2025. His challenge to that decision resulted in a direction for fresh consideration; however, the District Education Officer, by order dated 10 June 2026, rejected his claim on the ground that he had not attended the counselling.

Whether non-attendance at counselling for choice of posting, when the Petitioner had already been selected and found eligible for promotion, could lawfully disentitle him from the promotion itself?

Whether the Petitioner was entitled to promotional benefits from the date on which his juniors were promoted, namely 16 July 2022, with consequential service and financial benefits?

The Court exercised jurisdiction under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India.

It applied the principle that where an employee has already been selected and found eligible for promotion, a subsequent counselling process intended only to determine the employee’s choice of posting cannot extinguish the substantive right to promotion. Non-attendance at such counselling may result in forfeiture of the employee’s right to choose a preferred school or posting, but cannot, by itself, justify denial of the promotion, particularly where the absence was neither deliberate nor intentional.

The Court distinguished between the Petitioner’s established right to promotion and the separate administrative process of counselling for choice of school.

The promotion order dated 8 July 2022, issued on the recommendation of the District Level Promotion Committee, conclusively demonstrated that the Petitioner had been found eligible and selected for promotion.

Counselling merely enabled selected candidates to choose their preferred posting; it was not a further eligibility condition for promotion.

Since the Petitioner’s absence occurred during sanctioned medical leave and was therefore not deliberate, denying him the entire promotional benefit was disproportionate and legally unsustainable. At most, the authorities could have assigned him a posting without permitting him to exercise a choice.

The Court allowed the writ petition and quashed the District Education Officer’s order dated 10 June 2026.

It directed the authorities to grant the Petitioner promotional benefits with effect from 16 July 2022, the date from which his juniors had been promoted, together with all consequential service and financial benefits.