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Union of India & Ors. v. Maj. Gen. Manomoy Ganguly, VSM

Civil Appeal · 2017 INSC 1095Decided 10 Nov 2017
Civil Appeal No. 17535 of 2017
Justice A.K. Sikri · Justice Ashok Bhushan

Background

Maj. Gen. Manomoy Ganguly of the Army Medical Corps was not empanelled for promotion to Lieutenant General by a Special Promotion Board (SPB) in January 2016. After a statutory complaint led to expunging an adverse remark from his service record, he was considered afresh by a Review SPB, but was again denied promotion despite his revised marks now exceeding those of a junior officer (Maj. Gen. Sanjeev Chopra) who had been promoted. The Armed Forces Tribunal quashed the Review SPB's decision, finding it had relied on factually incorrect information about his merit ranking and had unfairly withheld "Board marks" that should have followed the same marking pattern used for other officers. The Union of India appealed to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court agreed that Board Members have discretion to award marks based on an officer's overall profile, not just quantified ACR marks, and that courts should be slow to second-guess decisions of senior military Board Members. However, it found the Review SPB had failed to apply the same marking yardstick it had used for every other officer in the original SPB (i.e., awarding "Board marks" strictly in line with quantified ACR scores), and had relied on a factually incorrect note about the respondent's merit ranking (stating his rank improved only to 15th position when it had actually jumped to 7th). Fairness and Article 14 required the Review SPB to apply the same standard used in the original SPB. The appeal was dismissed, upholding the Tribunal's direction for a fresh, properly conducted Review.

Lesson Learnt

When a selection board changes the criteria or relies on inaccurate information between an original and a "review" round for the same candidate, that unequal treatment can be struck down as unfair and arbitrary: consistency in the yardstick applied to similarly situated candidates is a facet of the constitutional guarantee of equality.

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

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