Selected in 2008, appointed in 2009: Himachal HC gives direct-recruit engineers their 2008 roster seniority
Justice Jiya Lal Bhardwaj quashed the 2011 seniority list of Assistant Engineers (Civil) in the Irrigation and Public Health Department that placed Public Service Commission recruits en bloc below promotees of 2008, holding that the State could not promote Junior Engineers on 31 December 2008 beyond their quota while the recommended recruits waited.
Direct-recruit Assistant Engineers whose selection began in April 2008 must be given seniority on the 2008 roster, even though their appointment letters went out only in January 2009. The Himachal Pradesh High Court ruled on 30 October 2026 that ranking them by date of joining defeated the rota-quota rule.
Justice Jiya Lal Bhardwaj allowed the petition of Vivek Katoch and other engineers of the Irrigation and Public Health Department. He quashed the seniority list of 24 May 2011 and the memorandum of 25 May 2011 rejecting their objections, and ordered fresh seniority under the roster with all consequential benefits. The judgment is approved for reporting.
A selection that ran past New Year
The Himachal Pradesh Public Service Commission advertised 15 posts of Assistant Engineer (Civil), Class-I (Gazetted), in April 2008 under Advertisement No. II/2008. Thirteen were for the general category and two for Scheduled Tribes. Applications closed on 21 May 2008, or 5 June 2008 for tribal and remote areas.
The screening test was held on 21 August 2008 and interviews between 17 and 25 October 2008. The Commission forwarded its recommendations to the department on 4 November 2008, and medical examinations and character verification followed.
The offers of appointment were issued only on 9 January 2009. The department then treated the recruits as entrants of 2009.
Promotions the day after the DPC
Meanwhile, Departmental Promotion Committees met on 15 March 2008 and 30 December 2008. On 31 December 2008, a day after the second meeting, a batch of Junior Engineers named as private respondents was promoted to Assistant Engineer, along with one Planning Assistant.
Under the recruitment rules notified in 1997 and the amended rules of 25 February 2005, the post is filled 25 per cent by direct recruitment and 75 per cent by promotion. Inter se seniority within a calendar year follows a roster that alternates a promotee and a direct recruit, and so on.
The petitioners say they were assured that seniority would run from the date of recommendation. But the tentative list of 24 February 2010 and the final list of 20 July 2010 placed them en bloc below everyone promoted on or after 31 March 2008.
After the High Court's judgment in S.S. Kutlehria v. State of H.P., the department redrew the list after a review DPC. The tentative list of 29 January 2011 and the final list of 24 May 2011 again put them below the 2008 promotees, and their objections were rejected on 25 May 2011.
A notification of 28 July 2011 then promoted more Junior Engineers notionally from 31 December 2008, pushing the petitioners further down.
The engineers: promotions beyond quota
The petitioners said 57 Junior Engineers were promoted in March 2008 and 12 in December 2008, while not one of the 15 direct-recruit posts was filled that year. At a 25:75 ratio, 15 direct recruits allowed no more than 45 promotions.
They added that degree holders and AMIE holders had also been promoted far beyond their sub-quotas within the promotion share. The excess, they argued, had to be treated as ad hoc and placed below them.
They also said the department had earlier given direct-recruit Assistant Engineers seniority from the date of the Commission's recommendation, and had not kept the vacancy register that Department of Personnel instructions require to track vacancies year by year. The State denied ever giving seniority from the recommendation date.
Senior Advocate Sunil Mohan Goel argued that the State had deliberately delayed the appointments while promoting the private respondents. He relied on S.G. Jaisinghani, V.B. Badami, N.R. Parmar, Hariharan and the Supreme Court's 2025 ruling in All India Judges Association.
The State: codal formalities took time
The State said a Commission recommendation creates no right to be appointed in a particular year. It set out the timeline: the recommendations were approved in November 2008, and police verification and medical reports were requested on 25 November 2008 and received on 23 December 2008.
The department had also asked the Himachal Pradesh Institute of Public Administration on 11 December 2008 to fix dates for induction training. With no reply despite two reminders, the posting proposal reached the appointing authority only on 29 December 2008.
With two days left in the year, it argued, offers sent by registered post could not have been delivered and accepted before 2009 began. So the letters went out on 9 January 2009.
The December DPC was needed, the State said, because a new I&PH Zone at Hamirpur and Circle at Bilaspur were created in July and August 2008, and 1984 instructions required a DPC within three months for unanticipated vacancies.
The March promotions, it said, filled 27 Junior Engineer posts upgraded after diploma holders complained of 30 years without promotion, plus 19 internalised posts and 11 clear vacancies. Because of economy measures, direct recruitment was not done every year, and direct-recruit vacancies simply accumulated.
Deputy Advocate General R.P. Singh relied on the three-judge bench ruling in K. Meghachandra Singh v. Ningam Siro, (2020) 5 SCC 689, and on M. Thanigivelu v. Tamil Nadu Electricity Board, for the rule that seniority cannot be counted from before entry into service. Counsel for the private respondents argued the same.
The State added that implementing Kutlehria had already reshuffled the cadre. AMIE promotees were replaced by university graduates for the same vacancies, another list issued on 23 September 2011, and nine AMIE engineers who lost their place faced possible reversion.
Quota and seniority are linked
The judge held that the petitioners were entitled to seniority in the recruitment year 2008, when the requisition was sent and the posts advertised, as per the roster in the notification of 25 February 2005.
He leaned on the Constitution Bench in S.G. Jaisinghani v. Union of India, which held that a quota rule is tied to the seniority rule, and that promotees appointed beyond the quota were illegally promoted. That case also held that absence of arbitrary power is the first essential of the rule of law.
In Jaisinghani, the Supreme Court found that promotees had been taken into the Income Tax service beyond the quota for 1951 to 1956 and later years. It issued a mandamus to adjust seniority and prepare a fresh list in line with the quota rule.
Once the rules fix a rota-quota and a roster, the State may still promote, but must assign seniority by the roster. If seniority went purely by date of joining, regardless of source, “the very purpose of fixing the rota-quota in the R&P Rules is frustrated” (para 29).
An employee ordinarily gets seniority from joining, the judge accepted. But where the rules fix the ratio between direct recruitment and promotion, those filling excess seats in one quota cannot rank above the other quota. He relied too on V.B. Badami v. State of Mysore, which held that a fixed quota cannot be altered to suit exigencies.
The year recruitment began
The decisive authority was the Constitution Bench ruling in All India Judges Association v. Union of India, 2025 INSC 1328, which considered both N.R. Parmar and Meghachandra Singh. That case dealt with the Higher Judicial Service.
It held that where recruitment from a source is not completed in the year it began, but appointments are made before the end of the following year, the appointees take their roster points for the year of initiation. The proviso is that no appointments for the next recruitment year are made before them.
The Supreme Court illustrated the point with direct recruits whose process began in Year A but who were appointed only in Year A+1. They would still take their places in the Year A roster, provided they were appointed before anyone whose recruitment began in Year A+1.
Applying that, the judge held that the process here began in April 2008. However delayed, the petitioners had to get their roster points, or the rota-quota would be frustrated and they would lose seniority and future promotion chances.
The argument that they were not yet borne in the cadre therefore failed. Thanigivelu did not apply, because the regulations there counted seniority from a candidate's place in the merit list, while the rules here prescribe a roster, a point neither the State nor the private respondents disputed.
Recruits were ready before the promotions
The judge found that the appointments were approved on 25 November 2008, and that medical and character verification was complete by 23 December 2008. The State ought to have offered appointment before promoting the private respondents on 31 December 2008, and in not doing so “it has acted arbitrarily” (para 35).
He distinguished H.V. Pardasani v. Union of India, (1985) 2 SCC 468, under which continuous length of service decides seniority only where no special provision exists. Here the rules prescribe a roster, so seniority must follow it strictly.
The economy-measures plea would have held only if an equal number of promotion posts had been kept vacant in the same ratio. If Junior Engineers could be promoted, direct-recruit posts had to be filled in proportion, especially when the recruits were available on the date of promotion.
The upgraded posts did not change the result. They could not exceed the share of vacancies falling to Junior Engineers, and those promoted against them had to be placed below the petitioners on the roster. Ignoring the roster, the judge held, violated Articles 14 and 16.
Order
The petition was allowed. The memoranda of 25 May 2011 and 24 May 2011 were quashed, and the State was directed to assign the petitioners seniority as per the roster in the I&PH Department Assistant Engineer (Civil) recruitment rules notified on 25 February 2005, with all consequential benefits.
There was no order as to costs. The judgment was reserved on 5 October 2026.