Pre-service technical qualifications cannot be excluded from promotion consideration absent an express rule requiring prior permission.

The applicants, Class-IV employees appointed in 2014, had completed Electrician Trade courses at Government Industrial Training Institutes before entering government service.

The department recorded their qualifications after seeking details from employees, but later excluded them from promotional consideration on the ground that they had not obtained prior departmental permission.

They sought recognition of their qualifications for promotion to Lineman and challenged the restriction in the 2022 seniority list requiring prior permission.

The respondents relied on SRO-99 of 2008 and a 2023 departmental clarification, and also pointed to revised recruitment rules under which Lineman posts were replaced by Junior Electrician/D.G. Operator posts.

Whether the respondents could refuse to recognize the applicants’ pre-service Electrician Trade qualifications for promotional consideration solely because the applicants had not obtained prior departmental permission.

Whether the restriction in the 2022 seniority list could impose an additional eligibility condition for promotion not found in the applicable recruitment rules.

Section 19 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985, provided the basis for the application.

SRO-99 of 2008 governed educational eligibility for initial appointment to Class-IV posts; its limits could not, without more, be treated as a bar to promotional consideration under separate rules.

Government Order No. 34-HME of 2018 provided for promotion to Lineman posts from eligible in-service candidates, while Government Order No. 457-JK(HME) of 2023 provided for promotion to the successor posts of Junior Electrician/D.G. Operator; neither was shown to expressly exclude qualifications acquired before appointment.

A seniority list or administrative clarification cannot add to or override eligibility conditions in the governing recruitment rules.

The Tribunal followed Dolly Sharma v. Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir & Others, O.A. No. 594/2022, decided 28 July 2026, which held that prior permission cannot ordinarily be required for a qualification acquired before the employee entered service.

The applicants acquired their qualifications before any employer–employee relationship with the respondents existed; they therefore could not reasonably have been expected to seek departmental permission.

The Tribunal found no express provision in either the 2018 or 2023 recruitment rules invalidating pre-service Electrician Trade qualifications for promotional purposes.

SRO-99 concerned initial appointment, while promotion had to be assessed under the rules applicable to the promotional post; neither the seniority-list condition nor the subsequent clarification could supply an exclusion absent from those rules.

Applying Dolly Sharma, the Tribunal held that the applicants’ qualifications must be considered, while emphasizing that recognition does not itself confer promotion and that all other eligibility requirements remain applicable.

The 2022 seniority-list condition was quashed to the extent that it excluded the applicants’ qualifications solely because they were obtained before appointment without prior permission.

The respondents were directed to recognize the qualifications, verify the certificates, and place the applicants’ cases before the competent authority for consideration against appropriate Electrical Cadre posts, subject to seniority, service, suitability, vacancies, and other prescribed requirements.

The respondents must also consider any applicable notional benefits if the applicants are otherwise entitled from the date a junior or similarly situated employee was promoted; the exercise must be completed within three months, with a speaking order communicated to the applicants.

No automatic promotion was ordered, and there was no order as to costs.