The Supreme Court has expressed displeasure with the Manipur High Court for not complying the SC judgment. The apex court had set aside the proceedings of a DPC of Manipur HC determining appointment to the post of assistant registrar.
The Supreme Court had directed for considering the promotion of an employee of the High Court on the basis of two years' ACRs instead of conducting fresh DPC to convene a fresh DPC.
The apex court on February 24 set aside the HC’s DPC proceedings stating failure to accord sufficient time for an employee to challenge the assessment of their performance for a particular year in an Annual Confidential Report (ACR) before the departmental promotion committee is convened.
The SC had passed the judgment in connection with a writ petition filed by an employee of the high court, RK Jibanlata Devi who claimed that she was entitled to be promoted to the post of assistant registrar on the basis of a seniority-cum-merit calculus.
However, 2016-17 ACR had not been communicated to her before the promotion committee met in 2021, remained undisputed, the court reiterated that uncommunicated adverse ACRs, even with a ‘good’ entry, are not relied on when considering an employee for a promotion.
Similarly, the performance evaluation report for 2019-20 was disclosed one day before the promotion committee was convened, even though the employee had 15 days to make a representation against the grade awarded to her in the report, the employee claimed in the petition.
The SC stated either the DPC could have been postponed or the ACR for the year 2019-20 ought not to have been considered and the same ought to have been treated as uncommunicated ACR.
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The SC while quashing and setting aside the DPC proceedings on February stated that for promotion to the post of assistant registrar as on April 9, 2021, that is the date on which the juniors came to be promoted is directed to be considered afresh ignoring the uncommunicated ACRs for the years 2016-17 and 2019-20 and thereafter the DPC/competent authority to take a fresh decision in accordance with law and taking into consideration the ACRs of remaining years, ie, 2017-18 and 2018-19. Such an exercise will be completed within a period of six weeks from today.
The bench of justice MR Shah and CT Ravikumar of the apex court on March 29 while hearing the writ petition expressed displeasure against the HC.
Justice MR Shah said to the advocate of the HC that the order is ‘clear’. Do you want contempt notice against the HC?
It may be noted that in the previous judgment, the SC was clear that out of five years, three ACRs are to be ignored and two years ACR to be considered. Thereafter, the petitioner ‘Jibanlata Devi’ case be reconsidered and she has to be given promotion. There is no need for a fresh DPC, only the petitioner case would be considered and she should be placed at the place where the junior was promoted.
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