State Must Uniformly Apply Restructuring and Shadow Post Mechanisms to All Similarly Situated Employees for Promotion

The petitioners, serving as Junior Engineers in the Road Construction Department, sought promotion to Assistant Engineer effective from 22.03.2023, consistent with benefits granted to similarly situated employees via a Notification dated 01.08.2025

The petitioners were parties to a previous litigation, W.P.(S) No. 2810 of 2023, wherein the High Court directed the State to reconsider promotions by first exhausting the 28% Diploma/open category quota before utilizing the 10% AMIE quota

In implementing that judgment, the State shifted 11 candidates from the AMIE quota to the Diploma quota and created "shadow posts" to protect excess candidates

However, the State excluded the petitioners, claiming a lack of vacancies, even though the State had adjusted other candidates with lower seniority (e.g., Sl. No. 894) into the Diploma quota while leaving seniors (Respondents 5-7, Sl. Nos. 886-888) in the AMIE quota

1. Whether the respondents’ failure to apply the same restructuring methodology (creation of shadow posts and shifting of quotas) to the petitioners constitutes a violation of Article 14 and the principle of parity

2. Whether the lack of physical vacancies is a valid ground to deny promotion when the State has already adopted the mechanism of supernumerary/shadow posts for other similarly situated employees in the same promotional exercise

The Court applied Article 14 of the Constitution of India, emphasizing that equality is a dynamic concept striking at arbitrariness in State action

It relied on D.S. Nakara v. Union of India, which mandates that classification must be founded on an intelligible differentia with a rational nexus to the object

Furthermore, the Court invoked Tej Prakash Pathak v. Rajasthan High Court regarding the doctrine of "legitimate expectation" and the requirement for public authorities to act predictably and fairly in recruitment and promotional processes

The Court observed that the respondents admitted to shifting 11 AMIE-qualified candidates to the Diploma quota and creating shadow posts to accommodate the resulting excess in the Diploma category

However, the respondents practiced "pick and choose" by failing to shift Respondent Nos. 5, 6, and 7 (seniority nos. 886-888) to the Diploma quota, despite their higher seniority compared to other adjusted candidates like seniority no. 894

The Court reasoned that since the State had already established a mechanism of creating supernumerary posts to comply with the previous court order, the same logic must apply to the petitioners to maintain uniformity

Denying this benefit to the petitioners, who were also parties to the original litigation and are identical in standing to those promoted on 01.08.2025, was held to be discriminatory and unsustainable

The Court ordered that if found eligible, the petitioners are to be granted promotion with notional effect from 22.03.2023, ensuring parity with the Notification dated 01.08.2025