Seniority Counts From Date Of Appointment, Not Vacancy Year: Bombay High Court

“Seniority cannot be reckoned from the date of occurrence of the vacancy and cannot be given retrospectively unless it is so expressly provided by the relevant service rules”— In a decisive ruling impacting federal service laws, the High Court of Judicature at Bombay has dismissed a batch of Writ Petitions filed by Direct Recruit Inspectors, firmly establishing that seniority must be calculated from the date an employee is substantively appointed and "borne in the cadre," rather than the date the vacancy originated.

THE CLASH OF PRECEDENTS: PARMAR VS. MEGHACHANDRA

The litigation centered on a fierce inter se seniority dispute within the Customs Department between Direct Recruit Inspectors (Examiners) and Promotee Inspectors. The Direct Recruits, who joined the service in 2017, sought seniority benefits anchored to the vacancy years 2015-2016. They rested their claim on the now-overruled Supreme Court judgment in Union of India v. N.R. Parmar, arguing that since their recruitment process commenced while Parmar was the prevailing law—which linked seniority to the recruitment year—their seniority should be retrospective.

Conversely, the Promotees, who entered the cadre in December 2016, contended that the legal landscape had shifted. They invoked the Supreme Court’s 2020 Constitution Bench judgment in K. Meghachandra Singh v. Ningam Siro, which expressly overruled Parmar. The Meghachandra verdict clarified that seniority cannot be claimed from a date preceding actual appointment. The Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) had previously ruled in favor of the Promotees, setting aside a seniority list that had granted retrospective benefits to the Direct Recruits.

BORN IN THE CADRE: REJECTING RETROSPECTIVE CLAIMS

The Division Bench, comprising Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar and Justice Gautam A. Ankhad, meticulously dissected the timeline. The Court noted that the disputed seniority list was finalized in November 2021—well after the K. Meghachandra Singh judgment was delivered in November 2019. Consequently, the Direct Recruits were not "borne in the cadre" at the time the Promotees were appointed.

Rejecting the Direct Recruits' plea to apply the "broken" law of N.R. Parmar, the High Court emphasized that retrospective seniority is impermissible absent specific statutory rules. The Bench upheld the validity of the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) Office Memorandum dated August 13, 2021, which implemented the Meghachandra ruling. The Court observed that granting seniority from the vacancy year would result in an absurdity where officers not yet in service would rank senior to those already discharging their duties.

JUDICIAL DISCIPLINE: PENDING REFERENCE DOES NOT FREEZE PRECEDENT

A pivotal legal defense raised by the Petitioners hinged on the Supreme Court’s decision in Hariharan & Ors. v. Harsh Vardhan Singh Rao, which referred the correctness of the K. Meghachandra Singh verdict to a larger bench. The Petitioners argued that this reference rendered Meghachandra non-binding.

The Bombay High Court firmly rejected this proposition, reinforcing the doctrine of judicial discipline. The Bench asserted that a mere reference to a larger bench does not stay the operation of a binding judgment. "It is necessary for continuity, certainty and productivity in the administration of justice that the decision in ‘K. Meghachandra Singh’ is followed without awaiting a decision by the larger Bench," the Court stated, clarifying that until expressly overruled, K. Meghachandra Singh remains the law of the land.

Dismissing the petitions, the High Court affirmed the Tribunal's directive to re-fix seniority based strictly on the date of appointment. This judgment serves as a critical precedent that administrative delays in recruitment processes cannot be leveraged to grant retrospective seniority to Direct Recruits over serving Promotees. The ruling solidifies the "date of appointment" as the definitive and equitable criterion for determining seniority in the absence of contrary statutory provisions.

Date of Decision: 27th November 2025