Integrity certificates and promotion rules: executive instructions may guide selection, but exclusion needs recorded reasons and fair reconsideration.

Executive instructions may validly supplement promotion regulations when they assist assessment of merit and suitability and do not contradict the governing scheme; integrity can be treated as an element of suitability where assessment is based on service records. The resolutions requiring an integrity certificate were therefore held consistent with the regulations. However, exclusion from the select list could not stand on the existing record because the adverse confidential entry and related representations had not been properly decided, and the stated reasons for non-selection were insufficient. The appellant's case required fresh reconsideration by the Selection Committee after disposal of the pending representations and on the basis of the complete service record.

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Issues: (i) Whether the Government's resolutions requiring an integrity certificate for consideration by the Selection Committee were inconsistent with the promotion regulations and therefore invalid; (ii) whether the appellant's non-inclusion in the select list could be sustained and what consequential consideration was required.

Issue (i): Whether the Government's resolutions requiring an integrity certificate for consideration by the Selection Committee were inconsistent with the promotion regulations and therefore invalid.

Analysis: The applicable regulations required selection to be based on merit and suitability with due regard to seniority. The resolutions did not add a new disqualifying condition but operated as an executive measure to assist assessment of merit and suitability by directing attention to integrity, which is an essential component of suitability for public service. The executive instructions neither superseded the statutory regulations nor conferred unfettered discretion, since the certificate had to be based on the officer's confidential reports.

Conclusion: The resolutions were valid and were not ultra vires the regulations.

Issue (ii): Whether the appellant's non-inclusion in the select list could be sustained and what consequential consideration was required.

Analysis: The exclusion was closely linked to the withholding of the integrity certificate based on an adverse confidential entry, but that adverse entry had not been finally and properly adjudicated on the appellant's representations. The reasons disclosed for stating that the appellant was "not found suitable otherwise" were insufficient, because a supersession decision under the regulations must record reasons that explain the conclusion. In these circumstances, fairness required reconsideration of the appellant's case on the basis of his service record and the pending representations regarding the adverse entry.

Conclusion: The appellant's exclusion could not be sustained on the existing record, and his case had to be reconsidered afresh by the Selection Committee after disposal of his representations.

Final Conclusion: The Court restored the appellant's right to a fresh consideration for inclusion in the select list under the governing merit-and-seniority framework, with the administrative record and his representations first to be dealt with.

Ratio Decidendi: Executive instructions may validly supplement promotion regulations to aid assessment of merit and suitability where they do not contradict the statutory scheme, and any supersession from a select list must rest on recorded reasons that disclose a genuine application of the prescribed standard.

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