Rashi Mani Mishra & Ors. v. State of Uttar Pradesh & Ors.
Background
A group of Assistant Engineers in the Rural Engineering Departments of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand were appointed on an ad hoc basis in 1985 and later regularised in 1989. A long-running dispute arose over whether their years of ad hoc service should count towards their seniority, or whether seniority should run only from the date of regularisation. An earlier Supreme Court decision (Narendra Kumar Tripathi, 2015) had held that ad hoc service should count, leading authorities to revise seniority lists and downgrade some originally-senior employees, who then challenged the revised lists before the High Court.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court held that the ad hoc appointees in this case were appointed in 1985 without any selection process involving the Public Service Commission or a properly constituted Selection Committee, and were regularised only in 1989 after going through a Selection Committee process under the applicable Rules. Because their substantive appointment only validly came into existence upon regularisation in 1989, their seniority could be counted only from that date, not from their initial ad hoc appointment. The Court distinguished this situation from the Tripathi precedent and restored the original seniority list dated 14.12.2001, quashing the revised list and the High Court judgments that had relied on Tripathi to uphold it.
Lesson Learnt
Service seniority generally runs from the date of a valid, rule-compliant appointment; purely ad hoc service rendered without following the prescribed selection procedure will not automatically be counted towards seniority merely because a later regularisation occurred, unless the specific facts and rules say otherwise.