Kerala High Court: The Division Bench of V. Chitambaresh and A.M. Babu, JJ. allowed the appeal filed by a company against the order of learned Single Judge granting promotion to its retired employee on the ground that he had the requisite appraisal rating for the same.
Respondent herein had retired from the services of the appellant as an Executive in the year 2003. His plea was that he was entitled for promotion as Assistant Manager in the year 1997. Case of the appellant company was that there were no vacancies to the post of Assistant Manager at that time for the respondent to be promoted; and at best, he was entitled to stagnation promotion as per Clause 14(c) of Promotion Policy.
The Court noted that as per the aforesaid Promotion Policy, respondent (an engineering diploma holder) should have had a consistent record of performance (i.e., score of 150 and above) for a period of seven years in order to be considered by the Departmental Promotion Committee. However, he had a consistent record of performance only for three years during the period from 1994-95, 1995-96 and 1996-97. His performance dipped to a score below 150 in the year 1998-99. Thus, evidently, he was not eligible for stagnation promotion in the post of Executive as per Clause 14(c) of Promotion Policy.
It was observed that in view of a clear mandate in Clause 14 (pertaining to stagnation promotion) of Promotion Policy, the learned Single Judge had erred in granting promotion by relying on Clause 9 of the said policy which was applicable to regular promotion.
In view of the above, the impugned Judgment was set aside holding that respondent did not have a consistent record of good performance for seven years in order to be eligible for promotion.[Hindustan Newsprint Ltd. v T.C. Mani, 2019 SCC OnLine Ker 1031, Order dated 21-03-2019]
