Promotion assessment rules require strict DPC compliance, and later clarifications can operate retrospectively when explanatory.

Promotion under the Mizoram Engineering Service Rules, 2001 had to follow the assessment scheme in the Office Memorandum dated 10.10.2002, which required the DPC to examine service records and ACRs beyond the overall grading and to consider ACRs available for the year immediately preceding the vacancy or panel year. The later clarification dated 13.09.2004 was treated as explanatory of the original instruction and therefore retrospective. On that construction, the DPC was entitled to apply the clarified regime rather than exclude the later ACR position, and the Division Bench's view was consistent with the governing promotion framework.

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Issues: Whether, for promotion under the Mizoram Engineering Service Rules, 2001 and the Office Memorandum dated 10.10.2002, the Departmental Promotion Committee was required to consider the ACRs only up to the year ending 31.03.2002 or could take into account the later ACR for the year ending 31.03.2003, and whether the clarification issued on 13.09.2004 was retrospective and binding.

Analysis: The governing rules under Article 309 required promotion to be considered on the basis of service records and ACRs, while the Office Memorandum prescribed the mode and manner of assessment by the DPC. Clause 3.4(e) required the DPC to look beyond the overall grading and assess the entries in the ACRs, and clause 3.4(g) provided that ACRs which became available during the year immediately preceding the vacancy or panel year were to be considered. Read with paragraph 3.8, the scheme contemplated consideration of the records that would have been available had the DPC met at the appropriate time. The later clarification was explanatory of the original instruction and therefore operated retrospectively. On that construction, the DPC could not lawfully ignore the relevant ACR position as understood under the clarified regime, and the Division Bench's interpretation accorded with the procedural framework governing selection.

Conclusion: The clarification and the governing instructions were properly applied, and the DPC was not bound to exclude the later ACR in the manner contended by the appellant.

Ratio Decidendi: Where service rules or executive instructions prescribe the method for assessing merit in promotion, the DPC must follow the prescribed scheme strictly, and a later clarification that merely explains the original instruction operates retrospectively.

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