Summary
Promotee Income Tax Inspectors in Gujarat challenged the Gujarat High Court's restoration of a 2016 seniority list. Under N.R. Parmar, that list placed direct recruits of the 2009-10 vacancy year, selected through CGLE-2010, between the 2009-10 promotees. The Supreme Court found that the Department treated the financial year as the recruitment year. It also found that the direct-recruit process began within 2009-10, with the requisition and the January 2010 advertisement. K. Meghachandra Singh, which overruled Parmar, applies only prospectively, so the 2016 list could not be altered in 2018. Meghachandra had not considered Mervyn Coutindo or M. Subba Reddy, so the Court referred two questions to a five-Judge Bench. It vacated the status quo order meanwhile.
Issues
- Whether K. Meghachandra Singh v. Ningam Siro, which overruled N.R. Parmar, is a binding precedent given that the Constitution Bench decision in Mervyn Coutindo and the coordinate Bench decision in M. Subba Reddy were not considered.
- Whether, under the rotation of quota rule, direct recruits whose recruitment began in the vacancy year but ended later can be interspaced with promotees of that year, and whether the recruitment year for Income Tax Inspectors is the financial or calendar year.
Provisions considered
- OMs dated 07.02.1986 and 03.07.1986 (rotation of quota), Department of Personnel and Training Office MemorandaWhere the direct-recruit process starts in the vacancy year but cannot finish in it, the later appointees are interspaced with promotees of that year; where the process finishes in the year but too few are selected, the shortfall is carried forward and later selectees are bunched below earlier promotees. (¶¶ 3, 25, 30)
- Articles 16(1) and 141, Constitution of IndiaMervyn Coutindo held the rotational system of fixing seniority consistent with equality of opportunity, and a decision rendered without noticing binding larger or coordinate Bench precedent warrants reference to a larger Bench. (¶¶ 29, 30, 33)
Held
- The Income Tax Department always treated the vacancy or recruitment year for Inspectors as the financial year until the DoPT shifted to the calendar year from 2018; the calendar-year reference in the name of the SSC examination is irrelevant, since the SSC recruits as the department requires. (¶¶ 20, 21, 22)
- The requisition for 35 direct-recruit vacancies of 2009-10, the requisition to the SSC of 21.01.2010 and the CGLE-2010 advertisement requiring eligibility as on 02.03.2010 all fell in 2009-10, so the direct-recruit process commenced in the vacancy year itself and the eligible recruits lost the year for no fault of their own. (¶¶ 23, 31)
- Meghachandra expressly protects inter se seniority already fixed under N.R. Parmar and operates prospectively from 19.11.2019; there being no rule requiring seniority from entry into the cadre, the list of 07.09.2016 was correctly prepared under Parmar and could not be revised on 13.02.2018, still less without hearing the affected direct recruits. (¶¶ 27, 32, 33)
- Since Mervyn Coutindo and M. Subba Reddy, which uphold seniority by rota and quota though direct recruits join later, were not placed before the Meghachandra Bench, the questions of its binding effect and of interspacing direct recruits whose process spilled over were referred to a five-Judge Bench. (¶¶ 28, 29, 30, 33, 35)
Result
Questions referred to a five-Judge Bench and the matter placed before the Chief Justice of India; the interim status quo order of 13.07.2018 vacated, effect to be given to the Gujarat High Court judgment dated 11.05.2018 in Special Civil Application No. 3212 of 2018 subject to the outcome of the appeal or reference; the appeal from the Patna High Court (SLP Diary No. 12422 of 2022) to be heard with the main appeal.