Writ petitions challenging seniority and promotion counselling were closed as infructuous after seniority was redrawn.

The five writ petitions concerned disputes over Civil Medical List (CML) seniority and its effect on promotion and transfer counselling for medical posts.

The petitioners sought, among other reliefs, to have seniority determined by earlier CML lists and to challenge the 2018 seniority-related proceedings and a circular dated 22 February 2019.

When the petitions were taken up, counsel for the petitioners and the official respondents jointly submitted that the disputes had become infructuous following orders in W.P. Nos. 24404 of 2018 and connected cases, decided on 29 April 2022, pursuant to which seniority had been redrawn.

Whether the petitions’ challenges to CML seniority and related promotion or transfer counselling remained live after seniority was redrawn pursuant to the orders dated 29 April 2022.

Whether the petitions and connected miscellaneous petitions should therefore be closed as infructuous.

The order cites no statute, regulation, or precedent as the basis for its decision.

It records the parties’ joint submission that the matters had become infructuous after the seniority redraw pursuant to the earlier batch orders; the Court does not set out or apply a separate legal test for determining when a writ petition becomes infructuous.

The Court did not adjudicate the petitioners’ substantive claims about CML seniority or promotion eligibility.

It relied on the uniform submission of counsel that the 2022 orders had resulted in seniority being redrawn, leaving nothing further for determination in these petitions. On that basis, it treated the disputes as no longer requiring adjudication.

The Court made no order as to costs and closed the connected miscellaneous petitions. The order does not grant or deny the petitioners’ substantive claims on their merits.