‘Unreasonable and arbitrary’: Why Manipur High Court set aside seniority list for assistant public prosecutors

Justice A Guneshwar Sharma listed out crucial grounds while deciding the plea of two government-appointed APPs, who had challenged a July 2022 notification placing them below their colleagues who entered service years after them.

1. It is clear that in the case of appointments in different years, the initial date of appointment will be a good consideration for determining seniority. This principle shall be followed in the absence of any contrary provision under the rules.
2. If contract employees appointed in different years are regularised on the same day, the contract employees appointed in the earlier years will be senior to those appointed later on.
3. In the absence of any rules and/or execution instructions, it will be appropriate for the courts to evolve a fair mechanism to decide the seniority of persons appointed on different dates, but regularised on the same day.
4. It is the settled principle of law that the seniority of direct recruits in a common examination is based on the merit list of the recruitment examination, unless differently specified by the relevant rules.
5. It may be noted that the recruitment to the post of APP is through direct recruitment, and as a corollary, the regularisation of contract employees in the cadre of APP will also be direct recruitment.
6. In the case in hand, there is no specific rule for determining the seniority of persons appointed on contract on different dates, but regularised on the same day. Besides, there are no executive instructions in this aspect.
7. The same is in contravention of the direction of this court in 2022, passed and connected matters, where similar seniority list of APP was set aside with a direction to decide afresh.
8. The seniority list of APP of 2022 issued by the deputy secretary (Law), Government of Manipur, is set aside.

Background

The petitioners were initially appointed as APPs on contract basis for one year in December 2005.

Between 2005 and 2016, their services were extended periodically by the authorities, and several others (those later ranked above the petitioners) were also appointed on a contractual basis in 2009 and 2010, and finally, in 2016, the state government regularised all these appointments.

However, when the state government issued a seniority list in 2021, the petitioners found themselves at serial numbers 10 and 11, effectively making them junior to those who had been appointed years after them.

Following the government order, the petitioners moved the high court in 2022, where the court quashed the government’s 2021 seniority list and directed the state to finalise a new list within two months.

Acting upon the court’s order, the deputy secretary of law officially set aside the 2021 list and called for fresh objections.

But, when the state published the new final seniority list in July 2022, the petitioners were again placed at serial numbers 10 and 11, following which they filed the present plea.

Acknowledging that there is no specific rule for determining the seniority of persons appointed on contract on different dates, the court said, “The action of the state giving preference to contract employees appointed on later dates is arbitrary, unreasonable, and not supported by any rules or instructions from the competent authority.”