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Commodore P.K. Banerjee v. Union of India

Civil Appeal · 2018 INSC 135Decided 12 Feb 2018
Civil Appeal No. 1843 of 2018
Justice A.K. Sikri · Justice Ashok Bhushan

Background

Commodore Banerjee, a decorated Naval officer who commanded the warship INS Tabar during a notable anti-piracy operation, challenged uncommunicated adverse remarks entered in his 2007-08 Annual Confidential Report (ACR) by his Reviewing Officer, arguing these remarks had a cascading negative effect on all his subsequent ACRs and ultimately caused him to be passed over for promotion to Rear Admiral. The Armed Forces Tribunal had already expunged the uncommunicated adverse remarks for that specific period but declined to upgrade his later ACRs, finding no causal link between the expunged remarks and the subsequent gradings.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court upheld the Tribunal's finding that the later ACRs, prepared by different officers, were consistent with the appellant's overall career profile both before and after the disputed period, and were legitimately "moderated" under the Navy's Performance Appraisal Review Board (PARB) system, which allows senior officers to bring unusually high or low gradings in line with an officer's demonstrated past performance. The Court also found that several of the appellant's factual claims, that he had always topped merit lists and that officers promoted ahead of him were his juniors, were disproved by the Navy's records. While dismissing the appeal and declining to interfere with the denial of promotion, the Court added observations recognising the appellant as a genuinely good officer and expressed hope that the Navy would consider him fairly for future promotion.

Lesson Learnt

Courts will not second-guess an internal institutional moderation system (like the Navy's PARB) that is designed to normalize unusually high or low performance gradings against an officer's overall career record, unless bad faith or a clear procedural violation (such as failure to communicate adverse remarks) is shown for the specific report being challenged.

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

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