Supreme Court: The bench comprising of Anil R. Dave and Shiva Kirti Singh, JJ, considered the question pertaining to the interpretation of paragraphs 180, 189 and 320 of the Indian Railway Establishment Manual, 1989 concerning the promotion of employees from one group to another and from one grade to another within a group. . While deciding the particular issue, the Court held that seniority list for employees working in different grades should be different and there cannot be any common seniority list for all the employees working in one particular group. It also said that the impugned judgment affirming the order of the Tribunal that respondent 1 should be considered for promotion.
Railway services are mainly classified in four groups each having different grades. Respondents 2 and 3 were promoted to a higher post in the higher group, while respondent 1 even after having the longest term of service in the same group but different grade was not promoted. The Central Administrative Tribunal as well as the High Court of Kerala decided in favor, that respondent 1 should be considered for promotion on the basis of seniority.
According to the relevant paragraphs employees working in the lowest grade get promoted to the higher grade in the same group and in case they are in the highest grade of any particular group, they get promoted to the higher group on different basis. Seniority list for each grade should be different and cannot have a common one. Union of India v. V.K. Krishnan, 2015 SCC OnLine SC 132, decided on 17.02.2015
