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Prabhu Dayal Khandelwal v. Chairman, U.P.S.C. & Ors.

Civil Appeal · Neutral citation not assigned (Civil Appeal Nos. 8006-8007 of 2003)Decided 23 Jul 2015
Civil Appeal Nos. 8006-8007 of 2003
Justice J.S. Khehar · Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel

Background

A Commissioner of Income Tax was passed over for promotion to Chief Commissioner because, under the "very good" benchmark then in force, three of his five relevant Annual Confidential Reports graded him only "good." The Central Administrative Tribunal had ordered his case reconsidered since the "good" entries had never been communicated to him, but the Calcutta High Court set that order aside on writ petitions filed by the UPSC and Union of India. The appellant then appealed to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held, relying on its own precedents (Dev Dutt v. Union of India, Abhijit Ghosh Dastidar v. Union of India, and Sukhdev Singh v. Union of India), that every entry in a public servant's ACR, good, fair, or otherwise, must be communicated to them within a reasonable time, and an uncommunicated adverse or lower entry cannot be used against them as it would be arbitrary and violate Article 14. Since the three "good" entries had never been communicated, they had to be excluded, leaving only the "very good" entries, which met the promotion benchmark. The Court set aside the High Court's order and directed the authorities to reconsider the appellant's promotion within three months based on the valid communicated reports, with consequential benefits and arrears if he was found entitled, while clarifying this would not disturb promotions already made to others.

Lesson Learnt

A government employee cannot be denied a benefit like promotion based on a performance/confidential report entry that was never communicated to them: such uncommunicated entries, particularly adverse ones, must be disregarded as a matter of fairness and natural justice.

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

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