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| DB upholds 1979 police batch's seniority; quashes adverse orders | | | Early Times Report
JAMMU, Dec 15: Division Bench of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh High Court comprising Justice Rajnesh Oswal and Justice Rahul Bharti has delivered significant relief to 14 retired police officers of the April-1979 direct recruit Sub-Inspector batch, settling a decades-old seniority dispute that has travelled from the High Court to the Supreme Court and back. The judgment was pronounced on 12.12.2025 in LPA(SW) No. 113/2012 along with CCP(D) No. 4/2020 by a Division Bench comprising Justice Rajnesh Oswal and Justice Rahul Bharti.
In a strongly worded opening, the Bench noted that the appellants had "fought for justice, got justice and then lost justice," and found themselves pushed back "to square one," despite prolonged litigation that began in 1986 to protect their seniority against retrospective promotions granted to pre-1979 ASIs.
The controversy traces back to PHQ Order No. 1263 of 1985 dated 03.12.1985, through which certain pre-1979 Assistant Sub-Inspectors were granted retrospective promotion as Sub-Inspectors w.e.f. 25.04.1978, a move that effectively altered the inter-se seniority and impacted the promotion chain for the 1979 direct recruits. The dispute later culminated in the writ court's 29.11.2004 judgment, which quashed the 03.12.1985 order and directed restoration of seniority with consequential benefits for the 1979 direct recruits.
The litigation then reached the Supreme Court in Civil Appeals, where the apex court's judgment dated 05.12.2007 set aside the earlier Division Bench decision and restored the relief in favour of the 1979 batch, observing that the 03.12.1985 order appeared mala fide and was passed for an unauthorised purpose; however, it directed that any monetary benefits already conferred on the private respondents should not be recovered under Article 142.
Despite the Supreme Court mandate, fresh disputes arose when government orders issued during the compliance process were challenged by direct recruit DySPs (1999 batch). The Single Bench, by a common judgment dated 22.12.2011, set aside parts of the government orders to the extent they granted retrospective promotions and related benefits, and directed a fresh exercise for fixation of promotion dates, after hearing all stakeholders.
Finally deciding the LPA, the Division Bench directed that service benefits to the appellants by reference to Govt. Order No. Home-597(P) of 2008 dated 04.09.2008 shall be notional in terms of pecuniary benefits up to their superannuation, but the appellants shall be entitled to actual retiral benefits based on their revised service status. The court ordered compliance within 60 days, clarified that the relief is confined exclusively to the 14 appellants, and dropped the contempt proceedings in CCP(D) No. 4/2020 upon disposal of the main appeal. (JNF) |
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