Promotion policies must be applied equitably, and failure to justify the promotion of one candidate over equally qualified individuals constitutes discrimination.

JUDGMENT :

S. DATTA PURKAYASTHA, J.

Heard Mr. Sankar Lodh, learned counsel appearing for the petitioner. Also heard Mr. S. M. Chakraborty, learned Advocate General assisted by Mr. Mangal Debbarma, learned Addl. GA appearing for the respondents no.1, 2 and 3 and Mr. Tapash Datta Majumder, learned senior counsel assisted by Mr. Mintu Debbarma, learned counsel appearing for the respondents no.7 and 8.

2. Admittedly, the petitioner, Sri Uttam Kumar Das and Sri John Calvin Debbarma (respondent no.7) as well as Dr. Chandrani Biswas (respondent no.8) were working along with Sri Arun Kumar Debbarma, Sri Bijan Chakraborty and Sanjit Rupini as Deputy Director/Programme Officer in Education (Social Welfare & Social Education) Department [for short, 'SW&SE'], Government of Tripura. Vide Notification dated 18.01.2023 in exercise of Article 309 of the Constitution and in supersession of the earlier Recruitment Rules for the post of Joint Director (SW&SE), 3(three) posts of Joint Director were created as promotional post from the post of Deputy Director/Programme Officer with 5(five) years of experience in the feeder post.

3. In 2021, a promotion policy was framed by the State vide Notification No.F.2(24)-GA(P&T)/2021 dated 22.06.2021 (Annexure R-1) for doing promotional exercises as a stop-gap arrangement in view of the fact that the judgment and order dated 09.04.2015 of the High Court was challenged before the Hon'ble Supreme Court vide SLP(C) No.19765-19767 of 2015 and meanwhile, a large number of posts had fallen vacant to be filled up on promotion to avoid hindrance in the day-to-day discharge of administration of the State Government. The relevant paragraph nos.6 and 7 of the said promotion policy of 2021 are extracted hereunder for purposeful reference :

“6. Now, the State Government hereby notifies the following Promotion Policy, 2021 as follows:

(i) Rule 9 of the Tripura SC & ST Reservation Rules, 1992 and the provisos thereto shall be read in such a manner that only those SC & ST candidates who have qualified solely on the basis of merit and have never taken the benefit of reservation, will be treated to be own merit candidates and entitle to occupy the posts meant for general category and reservation shall be made cadre-wise.

(ii) 100 point roster shall apply only where the number of posts in the cadre is 4(four) or more.

(iii) Where the post in the cadre are 3(three) or less, the 3(three) point replacement roster shall be followed.

(iv) Single post or small cadres cannot be combined to make the number of posts more than 3(three).

7. Following the above policy, the DPC will identify employees eligible for promotion to a particular post against the available vacancies. After this exercise, DPC shall consider another exercise taking into account the procedure as stated in the rule 9(2) of the Tripura SC & ST Reservation Rules, 1992. Due to such exercise, if any candidate is found not considered in the process as stated in the above process, then such candidates shall be considered for ad-hoc promotion by creating supernumerary post(s).

4. After that policy came into force, the concerned DPC of the said SW&SE Department made a promotional exercise for filling up the said posts of said Joint Director on 04.04.2023 and above six persons were found to have come into the zone of consideration for such exercise. As it appears from said DPC minutes, two out of said three sanctioned posts of Joint Director are to be filled up form UR category and one post is to be filled up from ST category. After necessary consideration of candidature as well as eligibility of above said 6(six) officers, the DPC finally recommended Sri Arun Kumar Debbarma for promotion against ST post and Sri Bijan Chakraborty and Dr. Chandrani Biswas (respondent no.8) against 2(two) UR vacant posts. Simultaneously, the DPC also proposed for promotion of one ST candidate, namely, Sri John Calvin Debbarma against creation of supernumerary post and on such recommendation of the DPC, t