Gauhati High Court Upholds Amendment To Arunachal Pradesh Police Rules Aimed At 'Equitable Distribution' Of Promotion Opportunities
Upholding the constitutional validity of Rule 5(1)(b) of Arunachal Pradesh Police Service (Amendment) Rules 2025, the Gauhati High Court held that allocating promotional quota to Arunachal Pradesh Police Service (Entry Grade) based on sanctioned strength of Inspectors in three feeder cadres does not violate Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution.
The Rules fix the promotional quota for the three feeder cadres — Civil Police, India Reserve Battalion (IRBn), and the Arunachal Armed Police Battalion (AAPBn) — at 79.39%, 15.35% and 5.26% respectively, based on the present sanctioned strength of Inspectors in each unit.
The petitioners, Inspectors of Police serving in the IRBn, argued that this new scheme of computing promotional quota, which earlier was based on the sanctioned cadre-wise promotional posts, had arbitrarily reduced promotional posts of IRBn cadre from 17 to 9 and was “ex facie arbitrary, unreasonable and violative of Articles 14 and 16”.
Dismissing the challenge, the Division bench of Justice Kardak Ete and Justice Budi Habung held,
“The classification adopted under the Rule is founded on an intelligible differentia, namely, the sanctioned strength of Inspectors in the respective feeder cadres, which bears a rational nexus with the object sought to be achieved, namely, balanced cadre management and equitable distribution of promotional opportunities.”
It added that “Merely because the petitioners perceive that the earlier system was more beneficial to them would not be a ground for this Court to hold a decision embodied in a statutory rule ultra vires.”
The Court held that the impugned amendment was introduced to “remedy the imbalance that had arisen under the earlier Rules.”
Highlighting the earlier disparity in promotional prospects in the three cadres, advocate D Panging, appearing for the private respondents, had submitted that a substantially larger number of Sub-Inspectors in Civil Police-- compared to IRBn and AAPBn-- meant promotions to the rank of Inspector were comparatively slower in Civil Police, causing stagnation among its officers relative to other cadres.
Referring to the Supreme Court's judgement in A. Satyanarayana & Ors. Vs. S. Purushotham (2008), the Court observed that a policy offends Article 16, when it completely extinguishes the promotional avenues of a class of employees.
It held that the impugned amendment, however, “neither takes away nor extinguishes the promotional avenues of the Inspectors belonging to the IRBn”, but “merely restructures” the distribution of the promotional quota among the three cadres based on the sanctioned strength of Inspectors.
“Such restructuring cannot be equated with denial of promotional opportunity altogether,” the Court said.
The bench relied on the Apex Court's ruling in P.U. Joshi and others v Accountant General, Ahmedabad and Ors (2003) and said that a government employee has no vested right to claim that rules regarding conditions of service or promotional avenues should forever remain unchanged.
The employee has no right to challenge the authority of the State to frame or amend an existing service rule, unless they are proved by him to be “arbitrary, unreasonable or irrational,” the Court said.
The Court rejected the petitioners' contention that the Rules altered cadre-wise earmarked promotional posts, holding that no such earmarking exists in the first place. It said that once an Inspector from any of the three feeder cadres is promoted to the Entry Grade, he ceases to serve exclusively within his original cadre and becomes a member of the common police service.
“Thus, it would not be correct to construe that there is a cadre-wise earmarking of promotional posts in the Arunachal Pradesh Police Service (Entry Grade),” the Court said.
Rejecting the contention of the petitioners that the new Rules are procedurally defective due to noncompliance with an Office Memorandum, the Court said, “Even assuming that there has been any procedural deviation in the internal processing of the proposal, the same would not, by itself, invalidate the statutory Rules once duly approved and notified by the competent authority.”
Background
The petitioners challenged Rule 5(1)(b) of the Arunachal Pradesh Police Service (Amendment) Rules, 2025, as arbitrary and violative of Articles 14 and 16.
They argued that the fixation of the promotional quota cannot be altered to the detriment of a particular cadre merely on the basis of the fluctuating numerical strength of the feeder cadre officers, especially when the number of sanctioned promotional posts remains unchanged.
Additional Advocate General, appearing for the State, submitted that the Rules were notified after due deliberations with all the stakeholders and were based on the recommendation made by the Department of Administrative Reforms. The State said the new Rules were introduced to remove the legal and structural deficiencies by ensuring equitable promotional opportunities amongst the three feeder cadres, having regard to the considerable variations in their respective promotional prospects from the rank of Sub-Inspector to Inspector.
Case title: Kayin Ering and 4 Ors v/s The State of AP and 15 Ors
Case No. : WP(C)/341/2025