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Dr. Ajit Kumar Shrivastava vs The State of Madhya Pradesh and Others

Civil Appeal · 2022 INSC 1132Decided 21 Oct 2022
Civil Appeal Nos. 7805-7806 of 2022
Ajay Rastogi · C.T. Ravikumar

Background

The appellant, an Indian Forest Services officer, had his candidature for promotion to Principal Chief Conservator of Forests kept in a "sealed cover" by the Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) on 12 May 2020, citing a pending show cause notice issued to him in 2016, while a junior officer was promoted instead. The Central Administrative Tribunal had ordered the sealed cover opened, holding that no disciplinary enquiry was actually pending against him, but the Madhya Pradesh High Court set that order aside, accepting the State's argument that the appellant's own pending litigation over the 2016 show cause notice had prevented the department from initiating disciplinary proceedings. The officer then appealed to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court found that even six years after the 2016 show cause notice and the appellant's detailed reply to it, no formal disciplinary enquiry (minor or major penalty proceedings under Rules 8 or 10 of the All India Services (Discipline and Appeal) Rules, 1969) had ever actually been instituted or was pending against him, only an internal, incomplete processing of the matter, which the Union Public Service Commission itself had returned to the State for deficiencies. The Court held that without a disciplinary enquiry actually initiated or pending, there was no lawful basis to keep the appellant's promotion candidature in a sealed cover, and rejected the State's argument that the appellant's own litigation over the show cause notice justified the delay, calling it a "lame excuse" and "putting a cart before the horse." The High Court's orders were set aside and the appeals allowed.

Lesson Learnt

A government employee's promotion cannot be withheld through a "sealed cover" merely because a show cause notice was issued years earlier: the sealed cover procedure applies only where a disciplinary enquiry has actually been formally instituted or is genuinely pending, not where the department has simply left matters unresolved.

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

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