No Right To Complete Tenure If Appointment Is Subject To 'Until Further Orders' : Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Tuesday (April 28) observed that where an appointment order makes the tenure subject to “until further orders,” it does not confer an enforceable right on the employee to continue for the full term.

A bench of Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justice Vipul M. Pancholi upheld the Delhi High Court's decision affirming the curtailment of the appellant's tenure by the respondent authorities, noting that although the appointment specified a five-year term, it was expressly subject to the condition “or until further orders, whichever is earlier.”

The appellant joined the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) as a scientist in 1978 and rose through the ranks before being appointed as Assistant Director General (ARIS) in 1998. His appointment order specified a tenure of five years “or until further orders, whichever is earlier.”

During his tenure, the Appellant alleged large-scale financial irregularities in procurement and project funding, claiming that his actions as a whistleblower led to retaliatory measures by the authorities. In January 2001, his tenure was curtailed, and he was reverted to his substantive post of Senior Scientist.

He challenged the decision before the Central Administrative Tribunal and later the Delhi High Court, both of which dismissed his claims, leading to the present appeal before the Supreme Court.

Dismissing the appeal, the judgment authored by Justice Mishra observed that an express wording of the appointment order, “until further orders”, allowed the Respondent-employer to curtail the tenure at any time.

It clarified that such curtailment is legally permissible unless shown to be arbitrary, mala fide, or punitive in nature, none of which were established in the present case.

“On the merits of the dispute, the CAT, at the first instance, had correctly observed that the appellant had no “enforceable right” to complete the full five-year term. The instant case is not one of the respondents-Authorities cutting short a prescribed minimum tenure having basis in some statute and/or binding judicial direction. Rather, at the time of appointment, the concerned Authority had expressly reserved the power to curtail the tenure at any point before five years by issuing further orders. Of course, this power is not absolute, but the judicial review of its exercise is subject to the well-settled standards governing administrative discretion i.e., review must be narrowly confined to assessing whether the action was arbitrary or irrational, tainted by mala fides, or colourable in nature, particularly vis-à-vis whether it imposes penal or stigmatic consequences without following the required disciplinary or natural-justice procedures.”, the court observed.

Relying on Deputy General Manager (Appellate Authority) and Ors. vs. Ajai Kumar Srivastava, [2021] 1 SCR 51, the Court reiterated that in-service matters, judicial review does not extend to assessing the correctness of the decision taken by the authority against an employee but is confined to examining the fairness and legality of the decision-making process.

Since the Respondent-employer was empowered to curtail the Appellant's tenure, there was no scope for judicial review of the correctness of the Appellant's tenure curtailment order.

In terms of the aforesaid, the appeal was dismissed.

Headnote

Service Law – Reversion / Repatriation – Scope of Judicial Review of Administrative Discretion - Constitution of India, 1950 – Article 311(2) – ICAR functions as an autonomous Society whose recruitment and service conditions are governed by its own rules and bye-laws—hence, Article 311 is not attracted – A transfer, reversion, or repatriation is ordinarily an incidence of service and cannot per se be considered punitive - Judicial review of administrative discretion is narrowly confined to evaluating the decision-making process rather than the merits or fairness of the conclusion itself - It must strictly assess whether the action was arbitrary, irrational, tainted by mala fides, or colourable, particularly regarding whether it imposes penal or stigmatic consequences without due procedure - Allegations of mala fides must be supported by clear, cogent, and concrete material, and cannot be entertained merely on conjectures or the sequence of events. [Paras 9, 10, 11-16]

Service Law – Non-Stigmatic Reversion – "Unsatisfactory" Performance - Stigmatic vs. Non-Stigmatic Orders – Reversion or termination based on Annual Assessment Reports (AARs) characterizing a performance as "unsatisfactory" or "below average" does not cast a stigma - To amount to a stigma, the language used in the order must explicitly impute something over and above mere unsuitability for the job - Highlighting an employee's unsuitability or unsatisfactory work is merely an unexceptional assessment of performance and is not ex facie stigmatic. [Relied on Deputy General Manager (Appellate Authority) and Ors. vs. Ajai Kumar Srivastava, [2021] 1 SCR 51; tate of U.P. and Ors. vs. Gobardhan Lal, [2004] 3 SCR 337; Paras 14-19]

Cause Title: SADACHARI SINGH TOMAR VERSUS UNION OF INDIA & ORS.

Citation : 2026 LiveLaw (SC) 432

Click here to download judgment

Appearance:

For Appellant(s) : Mr. Prashant Bhushan, AOR Ms. Nisha Tiwari, Adv.

For Respondent(s) : Mr. T. Mahipal, AOR Mr. Gunjesh Ranjan, Adv. Mr. Abhishek Kumar Gupta, Adv.