Unexplained later medical unfitness cannot override earlier SHAPE-I assessments when denying promotion.

The petitioner, enrolled in the Assam Rifles in 1990, was promoted to Havildar/GD in 2003 and Warrant Officer/GD in 2011. He had sustained a ballistic brain injury during an anti-insurgency operation in 2009, which was declared attributable to Government service, and was placed in medical category P2 (Permanent) on that account.

In 2022, he was placed in low medical category P3 (T-24) due to Primary Hypertension and Diabetes Mellitus Type-II. His case was considered for promotion to Naib Subedar/GD in DPC-2023, subject to improvement in his medical category.

After examination by a Specialist Medicine Officer on 29.05.2023, a Re-categorisation Medical Board upgraded him to P1/SHAPE-I with effect from that date. He was again found fit in SHAPE-I during his Annual Medical Examination on 22.07.2023.

The respondents issued a promotion order dated 14.08.2023, subject to the petitioner satisfying the medical criteria on the date of assumption of the promoted rank. However, he was subsequently declared medically unfit on 19.10.2023 on account of the same hypertension and diabetes conditions, and was not permitted to assume the rank. His junior was thereafter promoted.

The petitioner’s representations and legal notice were rejected by communication dated 31.01.2024. He consequently challenged the deletion of his name from the promotion list and sought promotion as Naib Subedar/GD with effect from 29.05.2023, or from the date on which his immediate junior was promoted.

1. Whether the respondents were justified in withholding the petitioner’s promotion on the basis of the medical fitness certificate dated 19.10.2023, without adequately considering the earlier Medical Board decision upgrading him to SHAPE-I and the subsequent Annual Medical Examination finding him fit?

2. Whether the petitioner’s operational injury and the relaxation available under Record Office Instruction 04/2002 entitled him to promotion despite the subsequent finding of medical unfitness for hypertension and diabetes?

3. Whether the petitioner was entitled to reconsideration and promotion from the date on which his immediate junior was promoted?

Promotion is subject to fulfilment of the prescribed medical standards, including the requirement that the employee be medically fit on the date of assumption of the promotional rank.

However, a subsequent medical opinion must be considered together with the employee’s complete medical record, particularly where earlier assessments by competent medical authorities had found the employee fit; the Court does not sit in appeal over medical expertise but may intervene where the decision-making process fails to account for relevant medical material.

Paragraph 7 of Appendix-A to Record Office Instruction 04/2002 permits relaxation of the mandatory SHAPE-I requirement in cases involving personnel wounded or injured during active Government duty, although that relaxation relates to the operational injury and not necessarily to unrelated medical conditions.

The Court relied on Union of India v. Brigadier Javed Iqbal, 2022 SCC OnLine SC 633, for the principle that improvement in an employee’s medical condition and the subsequent medical assessment must be considered while determining promotion entitlement.

The later guidelines dated 02.08.2024, prescribing validity of the medical category for one year, were treated as non-retrospective but indicative of the respondents’ subsequent approach to medical-category validity.

The Court found that the petitioner’s hypertension and diabetes had already been considered by the Specialist Medicine Officer and the duly constituted Medical Board, which upgraded him to SHAPE-I with effect from 29.05.2023. He was again found fit in SHAPE-I during the Annual Medical Examination on 22.07.2023, following which the respondents issued the promotion order dated 14.08.2023.

Although medical fitness on the date of assumption was a valid condition, the respondents could not rely mechanically on the later certificate dated 19.10.2023 without explaining why the same medical conditions, previously assessed as compatible with SHAPE-I, now rendered the petitioner unfit.

No material established any fresh illness, injury, or deterioration between the earlier assessments and the subsequent finding of unfitness.

The Court clarified that it was not substituting its opinion for that of the medical authorities; rather, it found procedural and evaluative failure in not considering the successive medical assessments as a whole.

The operational injury was not the basis of denial, since the respondents accepted that the applicable relaxation had already been extended in respect of that injury. The dispute concerned only hypertension and diabetes.

The impugned promotion order deleting the petitioner’s name and the communication dated 31.01.2024 were set aside. The respondents were directed to reconsider the petitioner’s promotion to Naib Subedar/GD in light of the judgment and the medical record existing on the relevant date, and, upon such consideration, to grant him promotion from the date on which his immediate junior was promoted, with all consequential service benefits. The exercise was to be completed within three months from receipt of the certified order.