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Lt. Gen. Manomoy Ganguly, VSM v. Union of India

Writ Petition (Civil) · 2018 INSC 1013Decided 29 Oct 2018
Writ Petition (Civil) No. 980 of 2018
Justice A.K. Sikri · Justice Ashok Bhushan

Background

Lieutenant General Manomoy Ganguly, a senior Army doctor, fought a long legal battle to secure promotion to Lieutenant General and then sought appointment as Director General Medical Services (Army) (DGMS Army), a senior post for which he was the seniormost eligible officer. After the Supreme Court had earlier remanded the matter to the Raksha Mantri (Defence Minister) for a fresh decision based on "inter se suitability," the government instead appointed Air Marshal Rajvir Singh, who was serving in a different post (DGMS Air), to the Army post, prompting Ganguly to challenge this appointment as unfair and contrary to policy.

Decision Breakdown

The Court found two fundamental errors in the government's decision: first, "lateral shifting" of an officer from one service's DGMS post to another's is permitted only in "exceptional circumstances" under the 1992 policy, and no such circumstances were shown for transferring Rajvir Singh from the Air Force; second, the government had invented a novel "Overall Average Performance" ranking method based on career-long confidential reports, a method never used before and not supported by the policy or by the Court's earlier judgment's meaning of "suitability." Once lateral shifting was excluded, only Ganguly and one other officer (already out of contention from an earlier round) remained eligible, and since Ganguly was undisputedly the seniormost and no one had found him unsuitable, the Court held he was entitled to the post. It quashed the appointment of Air Marshal Rajvir Singh and directed that Ganguly be appointed DGMS (Army) within a week.

Lesson Learnt

When a decision-making authority is asked by a court to reconsider a matter using specific criteria, it cannot invent new, unprecedented methods of evaluation to reach a predetermined outcome; courts will set aside such after-the-fact rationalisations that depart from established policy.

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

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