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Ashok Ram Parhad & Ors. vs The State of Maharashtra & Ors.

Civil Appeal · 2023 INSC 233Decided 15 Mar 2023
Civil Appeal No. 822 of 2023
Sanjay Kishan Kaul · Abhay S. Oka

Background

The appellants were directly recruited (by "nomination") as Assistant Conservators of Forest (ACF) in Maharashtra in 2016, after being selected in 2014 and completing mandatory training. The private respondents had instead been promoted to ACF directly from a lower post in 2014-15, without needing to undergo training. A Tribunal had earlier ruled that the appellants' salary and appointment should be backdated to the start of their training in 2014, and the state government accepted this and issued a resolution treating the training period as regular service for seniority purposes too. The promoted officers (who were not originally party to that case) then challenged this before the High Court, arguing that under the applicable recruitment rules, only the period after actually being appointed as ACF (i.e., after completing training) should count for seniority against promotees, and the High Court agreed with them, ruling that the appellants' seniority should run only from the date of their post-training appointment order, not from the date training began.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that statutory service rules must prevail over mere government resolutions, which cannot override or conflict with them. Examining the 1984 Rules governing promotion to the next-higher post of Divisional Forest Officer, the Court found a clear proviso stating that the period spent on training and probation "shall not be counted towards the requisite period of service" for direct recruits: this proviso would become meaningless if the appellants' training period were counted for seniority. Reading this together with the 1998 Recruitment Rules, which require successful completion of training before actual appointment, the Court agreed with the High Court that the government resolutions (relied on by the appellants) could give monetary compensation for the training period but could not be used to backdate seniority against promotees who had already been working in the post. The Court distinguished the precedents the appellants relied on, noting that seniority questions must be decided strictly by what the specific applicable rule says, not by general principles borrowed from other services' rules. The appeal was dismissed.

Lesson Learnt

In government service disputes over seniority between direct recruits and promotees, a specific statutory rule (framed under the Constitution) always overrides an administrative resolution, even a government-issued resolution granting a benefit (like backdated pay) cannot be stretched to also confer seniority rights if the actual service rule says otherwise.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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