IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA

CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION

CIVIL APPEAL No. 5314 OF 2007

K.A. Nagamani

…Appellant

Versus

Indian Airlines & Ors.

…

Respondents

J U D G M E N T

B.SUDERSHAN REDDY, J.

This appeal has been filed against the judgment

and order of the High Court of Delhi passed in LPA (C)

No. 1069 of 2004 affirming the judgment of the

learned Single Judge in CWP No. 2338 of 1991.

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2.

Brief facts needed for disposal of this appeal are

as under:

3.

The appellant Ms. K.A. Nagamani was appointed

as a Programmer with the Indian Airlines in the year

1984. The designation of the post of Programmer was

changed to that of System Officer in the year 1985.

The appellant was promoted to the next higher post of

Assistant Manager (Systems) in the Department of

Electronic Data Processing (for short ‘EDP’) sometime

in the year 1986 and confirmed in the said post on

15.9.1987. The EDP consisted of four divisions viz.

Software, Hardware, Data Communications and

Computer Operations.

Indian Airlines Officers’

Association vide its representations dated 19.9.1990

and 28.9.1990 suggested and requested the

Management to merge the hardware and software

cadres and to prepare a common seniority list. A

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common seniority list dated 24.9.1990 had been drawn

for the purpose of promotions.

4.

Thereafter interviews were held on 15.10.1990 for

the post of Deputy Manager (Maintenance/Systems).

The said post was to be filled from the merged

seniority list of hardware and software cadres. The

Management vide its letter dated 23.11.1990 informed

the appellant and others that their candidatures were

being considered for filling up the post of Deputy

Manager

(Maintenance/Systems).

Thereafter,

respondent nos. 2, 3 and 4 were selected for the post

of Deputy Manager (Maintenance/Systems). The

appellant unsuccessfully challenged the promotion of

respondent nos. 2 to 4 as the writ petition filed by her

was dismissed and confirmed in Letters Patent Appeal

by the Division Bench of the High Court.

5.

The High Court inter alia held that promotion to

the post of Deputy Manager (Maintenance/Systems) is

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to be on the basis of merit and, therefore, found no

merit in the submission of the appellant that her

juniors (respondent nos. 3 & 4) could not have been

promoted to the said post. That so far as the

promotion of the second respondent is concerned the

Division Bench while confirming the order of the

learned Single Judge found that his promotion had

been upheld by the court in Civil Writ Petition No.

3647/93 titled as Jaidev Chakraborthy & Ors. Vs.

Indian Airlines & Ors. in which the appellant herein

was also arrayed as a party respondent.

6.

The main thrust of the submission made by the

appellant in-person was that the promotion to the post

of Deputy Manager (Maintenance/Systems) could not

have been made based on the terms of the settlement

between the Indian Airlines and its Officers’

Association. That all along there has been separate

seniority list of Assistant Managers and Senior

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Computer Officers in EDP Department of the

Corporation. The respondent no. 2 was on seniority list

of Systems Officers who was promoted as Assistant

Manager (Systems) in 1985 and continued to be borne

on the seniority list of Assistant Manager (Systems) till

1988. Though, he was on the cadre of Systems called

for interview for the post of Senior Computer Officer

(Technical) in 1988 and was illegally shown at sl. no. 1

in the seniority list of Senior Computer Officer. He was

not eligible to be considered for the higher post. That

Rule 4 (d) of the Recruitment and Promotion Rules

provides that within a department, employees will be

divided into kindred occupational groups called cadres

as shown in the annexed schedule to the Rules and

seniority shall be on the basis of such c