IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.9514 of 1990 (O&M) Date of decision:01.04.2011 Bachittar Singh Walia ....Petitioner versus The State Bank of Patiala and others ....Respondents CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE K. KANNAN ---- Present: Mr. Vivek Sharma, Advocate, for Mr. Depinder Singh Patwalia, Advocate, for the petitioner. None for the respondents. ---- 1. Whether reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment ? No. 2. To be referred to the reporters or not ? No. 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the digest ? No. ---- K.Kannan, J. (Oral) 1. The writ petition contains a challenge to a promotion to the post of Middle Management Grade Scale-III (MMGS-III) with effect from the date when his juniors were promoted. The petitioner was not given the promotion on a policy consideration that directed selection to be made to the promotion post on the basis of merit-cum-seniority. The merit was to be appraised giving 50% for performance appraisal and 50% for interview. The grievance of the petitioner was that this policy itself was faulty and the seniority alone should have been the criterion for selection to the higher post. It was the further grievance that the persons, who had been promoted, were not meritorious themselves and Civil Writ Petition No.9514 of 1990 (O&M) - 2 - some of them had departmental proceedings against them for misconduct alleged against them. 2. It is admitted by the counsel that the petitioner has since been superannuated. The issue of entertaining an adjudication in a case where promotion was not merely on the basis of seniority but the criterion was merit-cum-seniority, it shall not become possible to constitute a fresh selection process. Even if the petitioner's contention were to be accepted, I do not feel obliged to undertake a consideration that the policy of promotion on the basis of merit-cum-seniority itself could not have been made and that the promotion could have been only on the basis of seniority. The scope of judicial review on an issue of a policy relating to how promotion should take place viz., whether it should be on the basis of seniority-cum-merit where the primacy would be seniority or it should be on the basis of merit-cum-seniority shall not be undertaken by the Court and it shall be best left to the Administration that runs its institution to find as to what will be the appropriate parameter for promotion. I do not find anything arbitrary in a method of promotion where the policy dictates a performance appraisal and interview to be assigned equal weightage and the selection to be done after such an exercise. The same case could have merited consideration although the petitioner had been superannuated in a case where the promotion was to be made only on the basis of seniority and where juniors had been promoted wrongly. In such a case making a provision for a notional promotion in so far as it would have been relevant for re-fixation of the terminal benefits cannot applied to a situation that Civil Writ Petition No.9514 of 1990 (O&M) - 3 - obtains in the present case where the governing consideration was the selection to a promotion post through a performance appraisal and interview in which the petitioner did not make a grade. 3. The learned counsel seeks for securing all the records for considering whether his selection as appropriately made and I decline the plea and proceed to dismiss the petition. (K.KANNAN) JUDGE 01.04.2011 sanjeev