SC upholds High Court ruling on promotion of Major General

The Supreme Court has upheld a judgment of the Delhi High Court that had directed the Army to consider a Major General for elevation to the rank of Lieutenant General after it had emerged that the officer was being denied his due promotion even though his adverse reports had been set aside.

“The High Court interfered with the decision of the Armed Forces Tribunal and held that it was a case of wrongful downgrading of confidential report and it was declared to be a case of injustice done to a Major General-ranked officer,” the apex court said.

Dismissing an appeal filed by the Union of India against the High Court orders, a Bench comprising Justice Hrishikesh Roy and Justice SVN Bhatti observed in their order of September 24 that in October 2023, the central government had granted partial redress to the officer by way of expunction of his grading on grounds of inconsistency.

In July, the Delhi High Court, while questioning procedural delays in the grievance redressal system, had held the Army’s refusal to re-consider the Major General for promotion even after his adverse confidential report (CR) was set aside by the central government as “arbitrary and illegal”.

Quashing an order by the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) that had denied him relief, the High Court ruled that such an officer cannot be told that even though the downgrading of his CR by his superior officers was illegal and has been subsequently set aside by the central government, he would still continue to be deprived of his rightful promotion as his junior has already been promoted in the meanwhile and he will be required to wait for accrual of the next vacancy.

“If the petitioner is not granted review consideration for promotion despite the redressal granted to him and his stand being vindicated that he had been wrongly downgraded, the very purpose of redressal being granted to an officer would stand defeated,” the High Court had ruled.

“This may lead to a situation like the present case, where despite being meritorious, an officer may still be denied promotion only because his superiors arbitrarily downgrade his CR,” the High Court said.

The petitioner, a Corps of Engineers officer of December 1987 seniority, was considered for promotion by the Special Selection Board (SSB) in 2023, where he learnt that despite having an outstanding career profile prior to 2021, he was downgraded in his CR. He filed a statutory complaint against his downgrading and later moved the AFT.

The officer had contended that since the result of the earlier SSB held in February 2023 qua the vacancies in the Corps of Engineers had been directed to be declassified only subject to outcome of the case in the AFT, it was incumbent upon the respondents to hold a review board without waiting for accrual of a fresh vacancy.