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Manoj Kumar Jindal vs Rajni Mahajan & Ors.

Civil Appeal · 2023 INSC 226Decided 14 Mar 2023
Civil Appeal No. 8110 of 2011
Abhay S. Oka · Rajesh Bindal

Background

The appellant and Respondent No. 1 both worked as lecturers in Punjab's Department of Technical Education and Industrial Training. Respondent No. 1 (senior to the appellant) was promoted to senior lecturer in May 2007 after a Departmental Promotion Committee recommended her. She was later reverted back to lecturer by an order dated 8 November 2007, without being given a proper chance to reply to the show-cause notice, on the ground that she lacked the required benchmark at the time the vacancy had originally arisen. She challenged this reversion, and both the High Court's Single Judge and Division Bench ruled in her favour, prompting the appellant to approach the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court noted there was no dispute that Respondent No.1 met the required benchmark at the time the Departmental Promotion Committee actually met and recommended her, even though there was a question about whether the earlier date (when the vacancy first arose) should have been used instead. The Court declined to conclusively decide that legal question, instead pointing to practical realities: more than 15 years had passed since the original promotion, Respondent No. 1 was already senior to the appellant in the cadre, and both had likely moved on to further promotions since. Reopening the matter now could unsettle many other settled positions and affect other employees. On this basis, the Court dismissed the appeal without ruling on the merits of the underlying legal question.

Lesson Learnt

Courts are often reluctant to unsettle long-standing service decisions purely on a technical point once many years have passed and other people's positions have since been built on that settled state of affairs: delay and passage of time can itself become a ground for not interfering, even where the legal question raised is arguable.

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

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