Railway Staff Who Entered Through Reservation Or Used It In Promotion Cannot Claim Unreserved Promotions On “Own Merit”: Jaipur CAT

The Tribunal heard three connected applications raising a common issue and treated OA No. 207/2023 as the lead case.

The lead applicant challenged a Railway notification dated 16 February 2023 concerning promotion to Senior Section Engineer (Electrical TRD).

He contended that a vacancy that should have been treated as unreserved had instead been allotted to an ST candidate, and sought a fresh eligibility/suitability list and adjustment of excess ST promotions against reserved roster points.

The applicants also challenged the continued use of instructions said to permit reserved-category employees to be promoted against unreserved vacancies on their own merit.

1. Whether an employee who entered service through a reserved vacancy, or obtained a promotion against a reserved vacancy, could subsequently be promoted against an unreserved promotional vacancy on the basis of own merit.

2. Whether the notification dated 16 February 2023 and the resulting eligibility/suitability exercise could stand, and whether a fresh list was required to be prepared category-wise.

The Tribunal relied on Section 19 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985, under which the applications were brought.

It referred to R.K. Sabharwal v. State of Punjab, (1995) 2 SCC 745, for the post-based roster principle, and to K. Manorama v. Union of India, (2010) 10 SCC 323, for the proposition that treatment of reserved-category candidates as open-category candidates on own merit applies to direct recruitment, not promotions based on seniority-cum-suitability.

It also discussed M. Nagaraj v. Union of India, (2006) 8 SCC 212, and Jarnail Singh v. Lachhmi Narain Gupta, Civil Appeal No. 629/2022, concerning the constitutional conditions for reservation in promotion.

The Tribunal further relied on the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s decision in Lachhmi Narain Gupta v. Jarnail Singh, the Rajasthan High Court’s decision in Abdul Rashid v. Union of India, and the undertaking recorded in the Supreme Court proceedings in Samta Andolan Samiti v. Sanjay Kothari, followed by Railway Board RBE No. 117/2016.

On that basis, it held that, pending the relevant proceedings, reserved-category employees could not be promoted to unreserved posts under the quashed or suspended instructions.

The Tribunal distinguished direct recruitment from promotion, reasoning that the own-merit principle applicable at recruitment did not permit an employee who had entered service or obtained promotion through reservation to claim promotion against an unreserved post at a later stage.

It considered the DoPT OM dated 10 August 2010 and Railway Board instructions based on it to have been quashed or held in abeyance, and treated the Solicitor General’s undertaking and RBE No. 117/2016 as precluding further promotions of reserved-category employees to unreserved posts on that basis.

It therefore found the challenged notification inconsistent with the applicable position and directed a fresh exercise allocating reserved-category candidates to reserved posts and unreserved-category candidates to unreserved posts.

It quashed the notification dated 16 February 2023 and directed the respondents to prepare a fresh eligibility/suitability list and make promotions category-wise—reserved-category candidates against reserved posts and unreserved-category candidates against unreserved posts.

All three applications were allowed, with no order as to costs; pending miscellaneous applications were closed.