While dealing with a dispute pertaining to the Tamil Nadu Ministerial Service, the Supreme Court has held that except in cases where the Recruitment Rules are clear and provide a methodology for fixing inter se seniority, the norm of counting seniority from the date of regularisation of temporary, ad hoc or Compassionate appointees should be followed to determine their inter se seniority.

The High Court was considering the Civil Appeals and Transferred Cases involving an inter se seniority dispute between different categories of appointees. The Direct recruits and Special appointees were claiming seniority over each other, and together both claimed a higher position in the seniority list above the Compassionate appointees. The Direct recruits and Special appointees challenged the decision of the Division Bench of the Madras High Court.

The Division Bench of Justice S.VN. Bhatti and Justice Shree Chandrashekhar held, “Any inter se dispute regarding seniority of two sets of employees should be examined on broad principles with a common sense approach. In every seniority-linked dispute there shall always be one or other factor which may weigh in favor of or against a particular set of employees. The Court is, therefore, required to take a practical view of the matter and should not involve itself in forensic examination of every little fact howsoever insignificant it may be. A Court of law must remember that inter se seniority dispute between two sets of employees in the same cadre need not be examined with mathematical precision. Shortly put, except in cases where the Recruitment Rules are clear and provide a methodology for fixing inter se seniority, the norm of counting seniority from the date of regularisation of temporary, ad hoc or Compassionate appointees should be followed to determine their inter-se seniority.”

Senior Advocates R. Subramanian represented the Appellant while AOR Rupali Francesca Samuel represented the Respondent.

Factual Background

During 1981-83, the Government of Tamil Nadu imposed a ban on the appointment of Junior Assistants and other Ministerial staff. However, temporary appointments were made under Rule 10(a)(i) of the General Rules, which fall under Part II of the Tamil Nadu State and Subordinate Services Rules, 1955. M. Prema and 13 other persons were appointed under Rule 10(a)(i) during 1981-84. In the meantime, the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission issued an advertisement for appointment to 5000 posts of Group IV employees through competitive examination. The selected candidates of this recruitment exercise were the Direct recruits of the 1983 Batch.

Around the year 1984, the Government of Tamil Nadu took a decision to regularise the services of the Junior Assistants, Typists and Steno-typists, who were appointed on compassionate grounds. The Compassionate appointees were placed in the seniority list of Direct recruits as per their date of appointment. M. Prema, who was appointed as Junior Assistant / Typist, was absorbed in service. She was aggrieved by the provisional seniority list of Assistants / Typists published under the authority of the Director General of Police wherein she was placed below the Direct recruits. She approached the Tamil Nadu Administrative Tribunal seeking quashing of Clause 10 of the Special Absorption Rules. While an applicationfiled by her was pending consideration before the Tribunal, a bunch of Direct recruits approached the High Court claiming seniority over the Compassionate appointees, Special appointees and other class of employees.

Aggrieved by the decision of the Division Bench that the Direct recruits should rank above the Special appointees, M. Prema approached the Apex Court. One appeal was filed by the Special appointees who were also aggrieved as M. Prema, inasmuch as the Special appointees were to rank below the Direct recruits and also below the Compassionate appointees in the combined seniority list of Junior Assistant / Typist, Steno-typist etc. In another appeal, the Direct recruits represented through H. Nagarajan and 9 other such appointees challenged the impugned decision of the Division Bench to the extent it held that inter se seniority of the Compassionate appointees with the Direct recruits shall be counted from the date of their initial appointment.

Reasoning

The Bench highlighted the basic rule of seniority that a Government employee appointed to a post following the due procedure and in accordance with the rules must rank senior to the appointees who entered in service as a temporary or stopgap measure or were appointed owing to some emergency.

“In “Direct Recruit Class II Engineering Officers' Association v. State of Maharashtra & Ors.”6 this Court held that a Direct recruit is entitled to claim seniority from the date of appointment and his seniority cannot be fixed based on the date of his confirmation in service. It further laid down that a Government employee cannot claim seniority from the date of initial appointment if he is a temporary or ad hoc employee and not appointed through the rules rather was a stopgap arrangement. This position in law has continued till date”, it stated.

The Bench also clarified that such past services of the Special appointees or Compassionate appointees rendered as ad hoc or temporary employees cannot be counted to accord them seniority over the Direct recruits of 1983 batch. “As to inter se seniority between the Compassionate appointees and the Special appointees, we hold that the same must be decided on the basis of their date of regularisation”, it added.

The Bench thus disposed of the Civil Appeal filed by 13 Special appointees who were also aggrieved as M. Prema with the direction for fixing inter se seniority of the Special appointees vis-à-vis the Compassionate appointees. The Bench allowed the Civil Appeal filed by the Direct recruits represented through H. Nagarajan and 9 other such appointees to the extent that the Compassionate appointees, namely, S. Prem Kumar and T.A. Kannappa should not rank above the Direct recruits of 1983 batch.

Cause Title: M. Prema v. The State of Tamil Nadu Rep By Its Secretary to the Government & Ors. (Neutral Citation: 2026 INSC 1105)

Appearance

Appellant: Senior Advocates R. Subramanian, V Prabhakar, AOR Binu Tamta, Advocates Jyoti Parasher, Saurabh Tiwari, AOR Revathy Raghavan, Advocates P R Kovilan Poongkuntran, AOR Geetha Kovilan, AOR Naresh Kumar

Respondent: AOR Rupali Francesca Samuel, AOR Shobha Ramamoorthy, Advocates Shilp Vinod, Supriya, Rakshita Mamgain

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