Shipbuilding Supervisor’s Bid To Backdate 2021 Promotion To 2017 Fails As CAT Finds He Completed Five Years’ Service Only In 2018

The applicant, a Construction Supervisor, sought notional promotion to Senior Construction Supervisor (SCS) from 21 January 2017, alleging that the respondents’ delay in convening the Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) caused his promotion to be deferred until 1 June 2021.

He relied on the DoPT model calendar for DPCs and contended that he was eligible by the relevant date in 2018.

The respondents submitted that the applicant had to complete five years’ qualifying service in the feeder grade, and that disputes and interim orders concerning grade-wise seniority and promotions prevented the DPC from proceeding earlier.

In an earlier proceeding brought by the applicant, the Tribunal had directed that the DPC be convened when the position in the pending litigation became clear; the related writ petitions and special leave petitions were disposed of by 25 November 2020.

The applicant was subsequently promoted to SCS with effect from 1 June 2021.

The Tribunal considered the DoPT Office Memorandum dated 8 May 2017, which prescribed a model calendar for conducting DPCs and stated that the suggested dates should not prevent speedy action.

It also referred to the DoPT Office Memorandum dated 10 April 1989, under which promotion of officers included in a panel is regular from the date the panel becomes valid or the date of actual promotion, whichever is later.

The Tribunal applied the principles that the existence of vacancies alone does not confer an enforceable right to retrospective promotion, and that a DPC-calendar deviation does not, by itself, justify backdating a promotion absent a breach of applicable rules or mandates.

It also relied on its unmodified directions in OA No. 793/2019 and the interim order in OA No. 1083/2018, which had restrained the proposed DPC pending the relevant proceedings.

The Tribunal found that the applicant’s claim could not be considered solely by reference to the model calendar.

The DPC process was affected by litigation over the applicable seniority system and by the interim restraint in OA No. 1083/2018; in OA No. 793/2019, the Tribunal had directed that a DPC be convened once the position in the related writ proceedings became clear.

The relevant writ petitions were dismissed and the special leave petitions were dismissed only by 25 November 2020, while the seniority exercise and review DPCs followed thereafter.

The Tribunal also noted that no junior to the applicant had been promoted earlier, that the applicant’s qualifying service was completed in 2018 according to the respondents, and that the applicant had not shown that the earlier direction in OA No. 793/2019 had been modified or reversed.

It therefore found no basis to attribute the delay solely to administrative inaction or to award retrospective promotion, which could also affect other cadre members’ interests.

Finding no merit in the application, it dismissed the OA and disposed of any pending miscellaneous applications; no order as to costs.