Right To Promotion Not Conferred From Date Of Vacancy Unless Rules Permit Retrospective Effect: J&K HC Rejects Claim For Backdated Promotion

“An employee cannot claim retrospective seniority or promotion unless the rules or statute governing the field provide for the same,” Justice Sanjay Dhar observed while dismissing a plea seeking backdated promotion.

Citing the Supreme Court's ruling in State of Uttaranchal v. Dinesh Kumar Sharma [(2007), the Court reiterated that the date of occurrence of vacancy does not entitle an employee to claim promotion from that date unless rules so provide. The right arises only when the employer initiates the process of filling the vacancy, the bench underscored.

Justice Dhar further underlined,

“In normal circumstances, a promotion or recruitment to a post takes effect from the date when an order to this effect is issued and not from a date anterior to the same. Learned counsel for the petitioner has not brought to the notice of this Court any statute or rule that would entitle the petitioner to the grant of retrospective promotion.”

These observations came in a petition involving one Mohammad Ashraf Mir, a Field Supervisor in the J&K State Forest Corporation, who approached the High Court seeking a direction to promote him as Block Manager with effect from the date he became eligible, either by qualification or seniority. Mir contended that under the Jammu and Kashmir State Forest Corporation Employees (Condition of Services) Amendment Regulations, 2010, promotions to the post of Block Manager were to be made 15% from graduate Field Supervisors with five years' service and 45% from matriculate Field Supervisors with eight years' service.

According to Mir, he fulfilled both eligibility criteria by 2018 yet he was overlooked in a promotion exercise conducted in April 2018, while a junior colleague, Nazir Ahmad Sheikh, was promoted. He claimed discrimination and argued that he should have been promoted from the date he became eligible asserting that vacant posts existed and were wrongfully allotted beyond the prescribed quota, in breach of the promotion regulations.

The J&K State Forest Corporation countered these claims by asserting that the Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) had convened on 11.04.2018 to consider all eligible candidates. At that time, Mir had neither acquired his graduation degree nor completed eight years of service, rendering him ineligible. The Corporation submitted that Mir was subsequently considered in the next DPC and was promoted as Block Manager effective from 2023.

The Corporation further submitted that no DPC was convened between April 2018 and April 2023, during which Mir became eligible, and thus, there was no denial of opportunity for consideration.

Upon examining the sequence of events and applicable legal provisions Justice Dhar noted that the petitioner indisputably became eligible for promotion only after 25.06.2018 (on acquiring graduation) and 18.08.2018 (on completing eight years of service). The DPC held on 11.04.2018 could not have considered him as he did not meet the criteria on that date, he pointed.

The Court further noted that Mir's junior was promoted based on eligibility as of April 2018, and thus no case of discrimination was made out. Importantly, the Court emphasized that although posts were available during the intervening period, the absence of any DPC during that time meant that the petitioner had no actionable right to claim promotion with retrospective effect.

“Admittedly, the petitioner has acquired the qualification of graduation on 25.06.2018, meaning thereby at the time when the DPC was conducted, he was not a graduate”, the court remarked.

Ultimately, the Court held that since the petitioner was granted promotion in the next available DPC and in the absence of any rule permitting retrospective effect, his claim was legally untenable.

Finding no merit in the petition, the Court dismissed the same.

Case Title: Mohammad Ashraf Mir Vs J&K State Forest Corporation & Others

Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (JKL) 185

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