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Supreme Court Rules on Seniority for Temporarily Appointed Government Engineers

The Supreme Court of India has handed down a significant ruling in P. Rammohan Rao v. K. Srinivas and Ors. , (2025 INSC 212), impacting the seniority of Assistant Executive Engineers (AEEs) in the Andhra Pradesh Panchayat Raj Department. The court overturned a Telangana High Court decision, affirming the right of certain temporarily appointed AEEs to count their temporary service towards their overall seniority.

Case Background:

The case involved two groups of AEEs. The appellants were appointed temporarily between 1990 and 1992, while the respondents were regularly appointed through the Andhra Pradesh Public Service Commission (APPSC) in 1997. The appellants' initial appointments were made to fill project-based vacancies due to an exigency, under Rule 10(a)(i) of the Andhra Pradesh Subordinate Service Rules, even though no specific rules for AEEs existed at that time. Their services were subsequently regularized in 2005, but their seniority was initially placed below the 1997 batch. A subsequent government order (G.O.M. No. 262, dated 17th June, 2006) modified this, granting them seniority from their initial appointment date. The High Court quashed this order, a decision challenged before the Supreme Court.

Arguments Presented:

The appellants argued that their temporary appointments, while project-based, were not ad-hoc or stop-gap arrangements. They emphasized the absence of a condition requiring APPSC selection for their appointments (unlike later appointments) and the government's intent to absorb them into the regular cadre. They cited several Government Orders and the fact that the government's delay in regularising their appointments was due to procedural issues and not any fault of their own. They relied on Direct Recruit Class II Engg. Officers’ Association v. State Of Maharashtra [(1990) 2 SCC 715], proposition (B), which states that uninterrupted service until regularization should be counted for seniority purposes.

The respondents countered that the appellants' appointments were irregular and that the 2005 regularization order had attained finality. They also argued that the 2006 order granting increased seniority violated principles of natural justice as they were not given a hearing. They relied on the corollary to proposition (A) of the Direct Recruit Class II Engg. Officers’ Association case, which holds that ad-hoc appointments don't count toward seniority.

Supreme Court's Decision and Reasoning:

The Supreme Court, in a judgment delivered by Justices Mehta and Narasimha , carefully examined the facts and the relevant legal precedents. The court highlighted the crucial distinction between the appellants' initial appointments (under G.O.M. No. 540) and later appointments (under G.O.M. No. 1289). The Court emphasized that G.O.M. No. 540, which covered the appellants' appointments, lacked the condition of APPSC selection present in later orders, suggesting that the appellants' temporary employment wasn't contingent. Furthermore, the Court noted that the appellants' services were regularized, thus removing the temporary nature of their appointments.

The court rejected the High Court's assertion that the government became functus officio after issuing the 2005 regularization order. They cited Orissa Administrative Tribunal Bar Association v. UOI [(2023) SCC OnLine SC 309] and Patel Engg. Ltd. v. Union of India (2012) 11 SCC 257, clarifying that the doctrine of functus officio doesn't apply to government policy decisions and that a prior hearing for each affected party isn't mandatory for rule-making.

The Supreme Court ultimately held that the appellants’ case fell under proposition (B) of the Direct Recruit Class II Engg. Officers’ Association case, allowing them to count their uninterrupted service toward their seniority, and thus placing them above the 1997 batch of directly recruited AEEs. The Court found the revised G.O.M. No. 262 to be legally sound. The High Court’s decision was quashed.

Implications:

This judgment clarifies the criteria for counting temporary service toward seniority in government employment, particularly when appointments are made in the absence of formal rules and later regularized. It underscores the limitations of the functus officio doctrine in the context of administrative decisions based on policy considerations and the absence of a mandatory prior hearing requirement for all affected parties in such contexts. The decision has significant implications for government employees across India facing similar situations.