Selection Posts Can Be Filled on Merit, Says Supreme Court

The Supreme Court allowed the State of Odisha’s appeals and set aside the Orissa High Court’s common judgment that had upheld relief granted to the writ petitioners. The Court held that promotion to the post in question was to be treated as a selection post, so merit and suitability would govern the process, not seniority alone.

The dispute arose from the filling up of the post of Assistant Regional Transport Officer. The post had originally been governed by executive instructions issued in 1981, under which a Grade I Assistant with five years’ service was eligible and selection was to be based on merit and suitability. Those instructions continued with later modifications.

The factual setting changed after the State reorganised the transport service structure in 2017 and later restructured the ministerial services cadre in 2019. The respondents, who had entered service as Junior Assistants in 2013 and were later promoted and redesignated as Senior Assistants and then Assistant Section Officers, sought consideration for promotion to Assistant Regional Transport Officer. A proposal was made to convene a Departmental Promotion Committee for vacant posts, but the Government rejected it.

The High Court interfered with the Government’s decision, but the Supreme Court disagreed. Referring to the nature of the post, the Court held that the post was a selection post and that the method of selection was a matter of policy within the Government’s competence. The Court stated that if the Government changed the method of selection, it was within its power to do so, unless the changed policy was shown to be arbitrary.

The Court also relied on the settled principle that in selection posts, seniority does not by itself confer a right to promotion. Seniority becomes relevant only where merit is otherwise equal and no other criterion is available. On that reasoning, the Court found the Division Bench’s view to be erroneous and held that it had acted illegally in dismissing the State’s intra-court appeals.

The appeals were allowed and the impugned orders were set aside.

Practical takeaway: for selection posts, the governing test is merit and suitability, and a policy shift by the State will stand unless arbitrariness is shown.