The court established that seniority must be fixed retrospectively, and actions that undermine an employee's rightful promotion based on ignored ACRs are impermissible and require rectification.

ORDER :

V.Bhavani Subbaroyan, J.

This Writ Petition is filed for issuance of a Writ of Mandamus to direct the respondent to include the petitioner's name in the panel of District Revenue Officers for the year 2012 at the appropriate place and consequently, include petitioner's name into the Select List of 2023 of the State Civil Service officers of Tamil Nadu for appointment to the cadre of Indian Administrative Service by taking into consideration of the petitioner's seniority in the post of District Revenue officer strictly in terms of the judgment rendered by this Court in W.P.No.16862 of 2023 dated 11.09.2023 with all consequential seniority, monetary and service benefits within the time stipulated by this Court.

2. The case of the petitioner is that she has joined the service by appointment as a Junior Assistant with effect from 10.08.1984 and the service was regularised on the same date. However, instead of recording the petitioner's seniority from 10.08.1984 erroneously fixed as 04.06.1986 and also the seniority in the post of Assistant was not fixed correctly. Therefore, the petitioner has approached the Tamil Nadu Administrative Tribunal, Chennai, by filing O.A.No.2223 of 2002, seeking a revision of the petitioner's seniority in the post of Junior Assistant in the Revenue Department, Trichy District, and a proper placement in the seniority list of Assistants as well. By order dated 27.08.2003, the Tribunal has directed to re-fix the seniority of the petitioner with a direction to the Revenue Department of the Government of Tamil Nadu to place the petitioner's name in the Seniority list of Junior Assistants between Serial No.386 (Thiru.Ravisankar) and Serial No.387 (Smt.Muthulakshmi).

3. As a consequence of said order, G.O.(2D) No.260, Revenue (Service 6(2) Department, dated 16.04.2004) was issued, directing the District Collector, Trichy, to re-fix the seniority on the basis of the order of the Tribunal dated 27.08.2003 in O.A.No.2223 of 2002 and based on the said direction, the seniority of the petitioner was revised by proceedings dated 19.07.2004 in the cadre of Junior Assistant and corresponding re-fixation was made in the panel of Assistants for the year 1990 including the name of the petitioner, based on which, revised orders were issued by the District Collector, Trichy on 20.07.2015 and 09.11.2016 respectively, re-fixing the relative seniority of the petitioner in the posts of Deputy Tahsildar and Tahsildar and the name of the petitioner was placed in the list of Tahsildars for the year 2003, as per the proceedings dated 09.11.2016.

4. The petitioner made a representation dated 27.12.2016 before the Commissioner of Revenue Administration to revise the petitioner's seniority correspondingly in the post of Deputy Collector by including her name in the panel of Deputy Collector for the year 2008-2009. The petitioner was promoted as Deputy Collector with effect from 11.02.2012 onwards from the panel of Deputy Collector for the year 2010-2011. Pursuant to the advancement of the name of the petitioner in the seniority list of Tahsildars for the year 2003 and from the list of Tahsildars for the year 2006, the petitioner states that her name ought to have been included in the list of Deputy Collector for the year 2008- 2009 at the appropriate place on par with her Juniors and as a consequence thereof, the petitioner was entitled for refixation of the seniority in the post of District Revenue Officer in the year 2012, whereas the petitio