Judgement

JUDGMENT:- These three appeals raise a common question for consideration. The question is whether an employee who is transferred from one unit to other on compassionate grounds, and as a result, is placed at the bottom of the seniority list can have his service in the earlier unit from where he has been transferred counted as experience for the purpose of promotion in the unit where he is transferred. There was a difference of opinion amongst the Benches of the Central Administrative Tribunal (hereinafter referred to as the Tribunal) on this question. In C. N. Poonappan v. Union on India & Ors.(Transfer Application No. 770 of 1986) decided on June 20,1986, which has given rise to Civil Appeal No. 1221 of 1987, the Madras Bench of the Tribunal has taken the view that though on transfer on compassionate grounds the employee loses his seniority and is placed at the bottom of the seniority list at the transferred place but for the purpose of promotion his earlier service in the unit from where he was transferred is not wiped out and the said service has to be treated as experience for the purpose of his eligibility for such promotion and if heirers found eligible then the matt