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Saroj Kumar v. Union of India

Civil Appeal · Neutral citation not assigned (Civil Appeal No. 6081 of 2015)Decided 18 Aug 2015
Civil Appeal No. 6081 of 2015
Justice Dipak Misra · Justice Prafulla C. Pant

Background

Saroj Kumar, an officer of the Indian Defence Accounts Service, claimed his promotion was unfairly delayed because of downgraded Annual Confidential Reports (ACRs) that were not communicated to him at the time. The Central Administrative Tribunal initially directed that his case be considered ignoring the uncommunicated entries, but after those entries were later formally communicated to him and his representation against them was rejected, the matter went through a second round of litigation. The High Court of Allahabad set aside the Tribunal's favourable order, holding that since the entries had since been communicated and his objections rejected, the earlier protection no longer applied. Saroj Kumar appealed to the Supreme Court against that reversal.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that once ACR entries have been duly communicated to an employee and his representation against them has been considered and rejected, the earlier line of cases protecting employees from "uncommunicated" adverse entries (such as Dev Dutt and Sukhdev Singh) no longer assists him. Since the Tribunal, in the latest round, wrongly treated the entries as still uncommunicated and directed promotion from an earlier date on that basis, the High Court was right to correct that error. The Supreme Court agreed with the High Court's reasoning and found no error in its judgment. The appeal was accordingly dismissed with no order as to costs.

Lesson Learnt

An employee's right to challenge adverse confidential remarks exists mainly while those remarks remain uncommunicated and unexplained; once they are formally communicated and the employee's objection is considered and rejected, that procedural protection is exhausted and cannot be revived in later rounds of litigation.

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

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