Seniority Of Employees Cannot Be Altered At Belated Stage When Consistent Practice Led To Legitimate Expectation In Their Favour: Delhi HC
The Delhi High Court held that an authority cannot alter seniority at a belated stage when a consistent practice led to the ‘legitimate expectation’ in favour of the employee.
The Court pointed out that the railways authority had not challenged the said promotions of the petitioners nor did they take any steps at the time of their respective promotions. Therefore, the issuance of the two impugned orders and that too belatedly without any plausible basis or reason casted a suspicion.
The Court reiterated that while exercising jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution, it cannot unsettle or alter the existing list of promotion/seniority belatedly unless there is something so grave or there is some apparent error on the face of the record.
A Division Bench of Justice V. Kameswar Rao and Justice Saurabh Banerjee observed, “Since the petitioners have been previously given the benefit of seniority/ promotions by the very same respondents, therefore, the petitioners have a right of legitimate expectation, which, in our opinion, would be violated if the two impugned actions/orders are allowed to sustain/operate.”
AOR Siddharth Batra represented the petitioners, while CGSC Vineet Dhanda appeared for the respondents.
The petitioners enrolled in the Railway Protection Force (RPF) and Railway Protection Special Force (RPSF) challenged the fixation/revision of seniority under the Railway Protection Force Rules, 1987 (RPF Rules) contending that the combined seniority list dated was inconsistent with the railway authority’s own approach in other cases to preserve the seniority, irrespective of any subsequent inter zonal transfers.
The Court had to determine whether the seniority of the petitioners in the seniority list could be disturbed by the railway authority at a belated stage when a lot of time has already elapsed after being given due promotions already.
“The respondents cannot be allowed to give a complete go-bye to the past especially when it comes to the unhindered and uncontested services rendered by the petitioners while they have been validly discharging their duties since assuming their respective post on promotion. As such, the petitioners cannot be relegated back in the past to once again start de-novo from the beginning,” the Court stated.
The Court explained that an individual can be said to have a “legitimate expectation” if any representation or promise is made by an authority either expressly or implicitly, or if the regular and consistent past practice of the authority gives room for such an expectation in the normal course of events.
“The respondents are trying to wrongly give retrospective seniority to the other similarly situated personnel like the petitioners herein by putting them ahead of such petitioners in the already existing seniority list as on date, which, as per the settled position of law, is not permissible,” the Court held.
Accordingly, the High Court allowed the application.
Cause Title: Agni Deo Prasad & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors. (Neutral Citation: 2024:DHC:3023-DB)
Appearance:
Petitioners: AOR Siddharth Batra, Archana Yadav, Shivani Chawla, Chinmay Dubey, Rhythm Katyal and Pratyush Arora
Respondents: CGSC Vineet Dhanda; AIG Mohamed Hanif; Advocates Gurleen Kaur, Archit Aggarwal, Subesh Kumar Sahoo and Anushka Jakhodia
