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The Punjab and Haryana High Court Tuesday set aside promotions granted by the Haryana Health Department in 2010 and 2013 after applying reservation for Scheduled Caste employees without amending service rules, and ordered that two senior clerks be granted retrospective promotion with full consequential benefits.
Justice Sandeep Moudgil, in a nine-page judgment pronounced on November 4, held that the State could not introduce reservation in promotions through administrative instructions when the relevant service rules under the Haryana Health Department Subordinate Offices Ministerial Staff (Group-C) Service Rules, 1997 and Group-B Service Rules, 1982 contained no such provision.
The court said the petitioners, Om Prakash and another, were entitled to promotion to Deputy Superintendent with effect from September 21, 2010, and to Superintendent with effect from May 31, 2013, along with seniority, pay fixation and arrears.
The dispute began when several junior SC employees were promoted to Deputy Superintendent on September 21, 2010, and later to Superintendent in 2013, by applying reservation. The petitioners, who were senior and eligible, were bypassed and their representations over the years were ignored. They approached the court in 2016. The case was reserved for orders on October 14, 2025.
Justice Moudgil observed that Article 16(4A), which permits reservation in promotion, is only an enabling provision and can be invoked only after the state conducts an exercise to collect quantifiable data on backwardness and inadequate representation, and after it amends the service rules under Article 309. The court noted that neither requirement had been met.
“Judicial pronouncements are interpretative tools, not vehicles of amendment,” the court said, rejecting the state’s reliance on Supreme Court rulings such as M. Nagaraj and Jarnail Singh to justify the promotions.
The court reiterated that executive instructions cannot override statutory rules, and cited Union of India v. Hemraj Singh Chauhan to conclude that denying promotion to seniors while elevating juniors violates Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution.
“No employee shall suffer because of an authority’s misapplication of law,” the court said, adding that the state cannot benefit from its own error.
