Seniority Cannot Be Claimed By Ad Hoc Or Temporary Employees Over Regularly Appointed Candidates: Supreme Court

"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." Supreme Court, in a judgment dated 09 October 2026, held that employees appointed through a regular selection process cannot be pushed down in the seniority list by the subsequent regularisation of temporary or ad hoc appointees.

A bench of Justice S.V.N. Bhatti and Justice Shree Chandrashekhar observed that a fundamental rule in service jurisprudence entitles direct recruits to claim seniority over those who entered the cadre through irregular or stopgap modes of selection.

The litigation involved a protracted dispute over inter se seniority between direct recruits of the 1983 batch, special appointees regularised under the Tamil Nadu Special Absorption Rules, 1987, and compassionate appointees in the Tamil Nadu Ministerial Service. The direct recruits had challenged a Madras High Court judgment which had placed compassionate appointees above them in the seniority list based on their respective dates of initial appointment.

The primary question before the court was whether temporary or compassionate appointees are entitled to count their period of ad hoc service for the purpose of seniority over direct recruits selected through the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission. The court was also tasked with determining the validity of Clause 10 of the Special Absorption Rules, 1987, concerning the ranking of different categories of employees.

Regularity Of Selection Remains Paramount

The court emphasised that Rule 10(a)(i) of the Tamil Nadu State and Subordinate Services Rules, 1955, contemplates temporary appointments only for stopgap arrangements, which are not intended to confer seniority rights. The judges noted that the employer has the right to frame rules, such as Clause 10, to protect the legitimate expectations of direct recruits who were delayed in joining solely due to posts being occupied by temporary staff.

Temporary Service Cannot Defeat Regular Recruitment

The bench clarified that regularisation of temporary employees is a concession that does not retrospectively grant them seniority over those who cleared the competitive selection process. Relying on the principle laid down in Direct Recruit Class II Engineering Officers' Association v. State of Maharashtra, the court held that an employee who enters service as a temporary measure cannot claim seniority from the date of initial appointment.

"The persons who were selected through regular mode cannot be rendered junior by regularisation of temporary appointees at a later stage."

No Mathematical Precision Required For Inter Se Seniority

Addressing the inter se dispute between compassionate and special appointees, the court ruled that such seniority must be decided on the basis of their date of regularisation. The judges cautioned that courts should not engage in exhaustive forensic examinations of every minor fact in seniority disputes but should instead adopt a common sense approach.

"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 Supreme Court dismissed the transferred cases (T.C.(C) Nos. 50, 51, and 52 of 2013) filed by the special appointees. It allowed the appeal of the direct recruits to the extent of clarifying that compassionate appointees shall not rank above the 1983 batch of direct recruits. The 2006 High Court judgment was modified accordingly, reinforcing the primacy of regular recruitment in service seniority.

Date of Decision: 09 October 2026