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Suresh Kumar v. The State of Haryana & Ors.

Civil Appeal · 2021 INSC 218Decided 26 Mar 2021
Civil Appeal No. 1076 of 2021
Justice Ashok Bhushan · Justice R. Subhash Reddy

Background

The appellants were directly recruited as Sub-Inspectors in the Haryana Police in 2003, ahead of a group of officers who were promoted to Sub-Inspector from Assistant Sub-Inspector slightly later (between June 2003 and March 2004). When the latter group was promoted to Inspector in 2008-2009, the appellants (despite being senior as Sub-Inspectors and having five years' experience in that rank) were left out because they had not yet completed eight years of approved service as an "upper subordinate" officer, a requirement under Rule 13.14(2) of the Punjab Police Rules, 1934 originally meant for promotion to a now-abolished "selection grade." The appellants argued this rule no longer applied after the selection-grade scheme was scrapped in 1987, and that only five years as Sub-Inspector (under different Rules, 13.1/13.15/13.16) should matter; the Punjab and Haryana High Court rejected this and upheld the promotions of the respondents.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court agreed with the High Court that the Police Rules had to be read together harmoniously, and that even though the formal "selection grade" rank was abolished in 1987, the State had continued, consistently, for both directly recruited and promoted Sub-Inspectors, to apply the underlying eight-years'-approved-service criterion as the real yardstick for promotion to Inspector, since that criterion existed to ensure adequate experience for an officer who would run a police station. Reading the requirement out of the rules merely because the named "selection grade" rank itself was abolished would make the eligibility safeguard meaningless and defeat the rule's evident purpose. Since none of the appellants had eight years' service when the respondents were promoted, the Court found no error in the High Court's judgment and dismissed all three appeals.

Lesson Learnt

When a specific rank or scheme named in a service rule is abolished, the substantive eligibility conditions built into that rule do not automatically disappear if they continue to serve the rule's underlying purpose: seniority alone does not override a validly continued experience requirement for promotion.

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

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