Conditional Promotion Due To Financial Objections Serves State Interest : Chhattisgarh High Court

A Division bench of the Chhattisgarh High Court comprising Chief Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Bibhu Datta Guru held that a promotion can be validly granted subject to conditions, such as being contingent on the outcome of pending inquiries involving serious financial objections, to protect the state's interest. Background Facts The appellant/ writ petitioner was serving as an Under Secretary in the Law and Legislative Affairs Department. He belonged to the Other Backward Class (OBC) category. His case for promotion to the post of Deputy Secretary was initially considered by a Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) in the year 2012. The DPC assessed his Annual Confidential Reports (ACRs) for five years. His ACR gradings were 'Very Good' for the year 2007-2012 except that the ACR for 2011 was not placed before the committee. The petitioner contended that as per the grading schedule, he should have been awarded 13 marks, but the DPC awarded him only 11 marks and found him unfit for promotion. The petitioner made a representation requesting a review DPC, which was not acted upon. He subsequently filed a petition. The High Court directed the respondents to decide his representation within 90 days. Therefore, a review DPC was convened and chaired by the Chief Secretary. The committee after re-evaluating ACRs, awarded petitioner 13 marks. It found him suitable and recommended his promotion to the post of Deputy Secretary. The recommendation was approved by the Law Minister on 12.05.2021. The approval for issuing the promotion order was granted on 13.05.2021. However, the promotion order was issued on 17.05.2021 with two conditions i.e. Condition No. 2 where the promotion was subject to the final decision on an objection regarding his earlier promotion. If the objection was decided against him, this promotion would be automatically cancelled. The Condition No. 3 stated that a decision on granting his annual increment would be taken only after the Office of the Accountant General decided the issue of an alleged excess payment of Rs. 10,84,868/- made to him. The petitioner made a representation seeking deletion of these conditions, which was rejected by the state. Aggrieved, the petitioner filed a fresh writ petition. The petition was dismissed by the Single Judge. Aggrieved by the judgment, the appellant filed the Appeal. It was submitted by the petitioner that the imposition of Conditions No. 2 and 3 in the promotion order dated 17.05.2021 was arbitrary. It was further submitted that the Review DPC after due evaluation, had recommended the petitioner's promotion unconditionally. The recommendation was duly approved by the Law Minister. Thus, the subsequent insertion of conditions by the Secretary (Law) was void ab initio. The petitioner also contended that the Department was aware of the pending proceedings and objections raised by the Accountant General's office at the time of the DPC's deliberation. Despite this the DPC recommended the promotion. Therefore, adding conditions later was unwarranted. On the other hand, it was submitted by the respondents State that during the meeting of the Review DPC, objections were raised by the Office of the Accountant General. The objections were that petitioner was wrongfully promoted to the post of Under Secretary and there was an order of recovery of Rs.10,84,868/-. It was further submitted that in light of these serious allegations including financial irregularities, the authorities took a decision to insert Conditions No. 2 and 3 in the promotion order. Findings of the Court The Court observed that the serious financial objections were raised by the Office of the Accountant General. The objections were related to the appellant's wrongful earlier promotion and a pending recovery order of Rs. 10,84,868/-. It was noted by the court that initially the objections were not brought to notice before the DPC or the Department and accordingly, recommendation was made by DPC to given promotion to the petitioner. It was held by the court that when the Committee came to know about the fact that there were serious objections raised by the Accountant General, therefore, in order to protect the State's interest and avoid future complications, the conditions No. 2 and 3 were lawfully inserted. It was further held by the Court that there was no merit in the contention that the Secretary (Law) lacked the authority to insert the conditions. It was observed that the decision was taken at the highest level considering the seriousness of the allegations and in the interest of administrative propriety. Further the Single Judge's view was upheld by the court which held that the appellant, having accepted the promotion order cannot challenge its conditions after availing the benefits. Therefore, it was concluded that conditional promotions during pending inquiries involving serious financial...

Conditional Promotion Due To Financial Objections Serves State Interest : Chhattisgarh High Court

Namdev Singh

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