Case: Sunaina Sharma Vs. The State Of Jammu And Kashmir

2. The undisputed facts are that appointment to the post of ETO under the J&K Excise & Taxation (Gazetted) Recruitment Rules, 1977 (for short the ‘Exciseis made from two sources, promotion and direct recruitment. The appellants are the original writ petitioners. They are direct recruits who were appointed as ETOs on the basis of J&K Combined Competitive Examination. They were issued appointment letters on 23.07.2004. The private respondents are promotees who were promoted to the post of ETOs. The J&K Public Service Commission proposed and cleared the names of the private respondents for promotion on 05.10.2004 and the private respondents were promoted as ETOs on the recommendation of the Public Service Commission on 06.12.2004. It is not disputed that the direct recruits and promotees have been promoted within their quota and there is no violation of quota. However, the private respondents were given retrospective promotion/appointment in the cadre of ETOs on various dates between 01.05.2002 and 01.01.2004. Resultantly, they were deemed to have been appointed as ETOs prior to the appellants who were appointed on 23.07.2004. As such the private respondents were placed senior to the appellants.3. A seniority list of ETOs was issued on 03.01.2006 in which the promotee/respondents were shown senior to the appellants. The appellants filed a writ petition before the J&K High Court challenging the grant of retrospective appointment to the private respondents. It was urged by the appellants that the private respondents were not even born in the cadre of ETOs when the appellants were appointed as ETOs on 23.07.2004. It was further averred that the private respondents, i.e., promotees had never worked as ETOs either on officiating orbasis and, in fact, the promotees had worked under the direct recruits for a few months before their promotion. It was further submitted that the post of ETO was in a separate service being a gazetted service and, therefore, the service rendered in the lower post could not be equated with the service rendered in the higher post. The stand of the contesting respondents was that in terms of Rule 23 of the J&K Civil Service (CCA Rules), 1956 (hereinafter referred to as Civil Service Rules), seniority could be assigned to the promotees from the date the vacancy occurred in the quota of promotees. The learned Single Judge held that retrospective promotions could not be granted, and allowed the writ petition. Two Letters Patent Appeals were filed which were disposed of by a common judgment of 06.03.2014 and the Division Bench held that in terms of Rules 23 and 24 of the Civil Service Rules the promotees were entitled to get retrospective promotion. The Division Bench placed reliance on the judgment of this Court in Suraj Prakash Gupta and Others vs. State of J&;K and Others (2000) 7 SCC 561 )to come to the conclusion that promotees were entitled to promotion from a date anterior to their appointment. This judgment is under challenge in these appeals.

Court's reasoning:
7. Since judgment in Suraj Prakashcase (supra) deals with very same Rules which fall for consideration in the present case, it is relevant for decision of our case. There is however, one marked difference between this case and the case of Suraj Prakash Gupta (supra). In Suraj Prakash Gupta (supra) all the promotees had actually worked in the higher posts and the challenge was that they could not get the benefit of the higher posts since they had not worked as per the rules. In the present case, the promotees have not worked even for a day in the higher post before being regularly promoted. In the present case, the learned Single Judge relied upon this judgment to hold that the promotees could not get benefit of anterior appointment under Rule 23. The Division Bench held otherwise. The difference of opinion is only because of one factor. According to the learned Single Judge, the promotees should have actually worked either on ad hoc basis or officiating basis on the promotional post, whereas according to the Division Bench, regardless of the fact whether the employee had actually worked on the promotional post or not, he is entitled to claim promotion from the date the vacancy arises in the promotional cadre, as long as he was working on a pensionable post and is a member of the service.8. At this stage, it would be pertinent to mention that it is a settled principle of law that normally no person can be promoted with retrospective effect from a date when he was not born in the cadre. Seniority has to be reckoned only from the date the person entered into that service.From the judgments referred to hereinabove it is apparent that the normal rule is that a person is entitled to seniority only from the date when the said person actually joins the post. True it is, that there are exceptions and sometimeses can be granted promotion from a date anterior to their being regularly promoted/appointed. However, this can be done only if the rules enable retrospective appointment and on fulfilling the other requirement of the rules.12. As far as the present case is concerned, Rule 23 of the Civil Services Rules has been extracted hereinabove. It, no doubt, postulates the appointment of a probationer to the service on a date anterior to his regular appointment. However, this is subject to two conditions. The first, is that the vacancy in his category should have existed and no appointment can be made from a date prior to the date of existence of vacancy. The second condition is that the person must have been continuously on duty as member of service from the said date. As far as the first condition is concerned there is no doubt that the promotees have been appointed from the date when the vacancies existed in their promotional quota. It is the second aspect of the matter which needs to be analysed in detail.13. In Suraj Prakashcase (supra) this Court held that direct recruits could not claim seniority from a date anterior to their appointment. The reason is simple. The direct recruits were not even born in the cadre and were not holding any post in the service. There can be no manner of doubt that direct recruits cannot get seniority from a date prior to their appointment. While interpreting Rule 23, we must also take note of Rule 9 of Excise Rules which deals with probation. When a person is appointed to the post of ETO whether by promotion or by way of direct recruitment, he shall be on probation for a period of two years. The explanation to Rule 9 provides that appointment on probation shall be made against substantive vacancies only. The explanation also provides that any period of officiating service shall be reckoned as period spent on probation when a person is formally appointed to the service. This clearly envisages that the person should have been actually working on the post of ETO to be considered to be on probation. The whole concept of probation is to judge the suitability of the candidate appointed to the post. There can be no objective assessment if the person is not actually working on the post. The promotees never worked as ETOs prior to their formal promotion. Therefore, though vacancies may have been there in their quota, they having not worked against the post of ETO could not have been appointed and granted seniority from an anterior date.14. In our view the rules in question clearly provide that not only vacancies should have been existing from an earlier date but the person to be granted retrospective promotion should have also been working against the post. To give an example in the context of the present Rules, a vacancy in the promotional cadre existed on 01.01.10. However, a person from the feeder category is promoted on temporary/officiating/adhoc/or on any other basis to work against the post on 01.01.11. He is thereafter regularly appointed on 01.01.12. Though the vacancy may have existed from 01.01.10 the employee can get promotion only from 01.01.11 when he actually started working against the said post.15. It is well settled that retrospective promotion to a particular group can violate Article 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India. Even if the Rules enable the State to make retrospective promotion, such promotion cannot be granted at the cost of some other group. Therefore, the only reasonable interpretation can be that the promotees can get promotion from an anterior date only if they have worked against the said post even if it be on temporary or officiating, orbasis etc.16. On analysis of Rule 24 of the Civil Services Rules, it is apparent that as per this Rule the seniority of a person subject to the said Rules is to be determined by the date of first appointment to such service, class, category or grade, as the case may be. Therefore, it is apparent that only the service rendered in a particular service, class, category or grade can be taken into consideration and not the service rendered in some other service, class , category or grade while determining the seniority.to the Rules also makes it clear that the date of first appointment shall mean the date of permanent appointment or the first appointment on probation on a clear vacancy. We have already held above that appointment on probation obviously envisages that the person is working against the said post in the particular service, class, category or grade.17. Therefore, on a combined reading of Rule 9 of the Excise Rules and Rule 23 and 24 of the Civil Services Rules, we are clearly of the view that promotion can be granted on retrospective basis to promotee officers from a date on which thevacancy in the promotional cadre has occurred subject however to the conditions that the promotee should have worked against that post prior to his regularcannot agree with this proposition. The post of ETO is a gazetted post in a totally different cadre. The promotees were not members of the Service as ETOs. They may have been holding pensionable posts but that does not mean that they were members of the Service as ETOs. The learned Single Judge was right in holding that the promotees could not have been given the benefit of retrospective promotion and seniority from a date when they were not even born in the cadre and not working against the post. We are also of the view that this retrospective promotion also violates the provisions of Rule 9 of the Excise Rules.