| Promotion subject to vacancy, not a vested right: HC | | | Early Times Report
JAMMU, July 9: The High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh has held that promotion in government service is not a vested right and remains subject to rules, availability of posts, eligibility and administrative policy.
Justice Shahzad Azeem passed the judgment while dismissing a writ petition filed by Mohammad Yaseen Khan, a retired driver, who had sought retrospective promotion to the post of Chauffeur along with consequential benefits.
The petitioner had challenged the note appended to Rule 1 of SRO 28 of 1996, under which promotion in the drivers' cadre was made subject to availability of posts. He pleaded that after completing five years of service, he should have been promoted automatically to the next higher post.
The Court, however, observed that a government employee has only the right to be considered for promotion under Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution, but this does not confer a right to actual promotion or to compel the government to increase cadre strength.
Appearing for the petitioner, Advocate B. A. Misri argued the matter, while Government Advocate Numan Idrees Malik represented the respondents. The respondents submitted that the petitioner had already been granted three in-situ financial promotions and non-promotion to the post of Chauffeur was only due to non-availability of vacancy.
The Court noted that the petitioner had already retired on March 31, 2025, and had failed to show that he suffered any financial loss due to non-grant of functional promotion.
Justice Azeem further held that limited promotional avenues or stagnation in a small cadre cannot be a ground for the Court to rewrite service rules or direct creation of posts.
"The rider of availability of posts, as provided in SRO 28, is constitutionally valid," the Court observed, adding that long stagnation may be a hardship but cannot justify grant of promotion dehors the rules.
Finding no merit in the petition, the High Court dismissed the writ petition along with connected applications and vacated any interim directions. (JNF) |
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