Cadre seniority follows service length, not graduation date, where promotion rules only grant accelerated eligibility.

Where service rules give Graduate Sub-Engineers accelerated eligibility for promotion after acquiring an engineering degree during service, cadre seniority is not reset from the date of graduation unless the rules expressly so provide. The Court found that the reduced eight-year qualifying period was only an incentive for in-service diploma-holders who later obtained the degree, while seniority continued to depend on length of service as Sub-Engineer. The departmental gradation list based on service in the cadre was therefore proper, and the contrary view of the Tribunal was set aside.

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Issues: Whether, for the 10% quota of Graduate Sub-Engineers eligible for promotion as Assistant Engineers, seniority and the qualifying eight years of service were to be counted from the date of acquiring the engineering degree or from the date of appointment and continuous service as Sub-Engineer.

Analysis: The applicable service rules did not contain a specific provision equating the period of service after acquisition of the degree with the earlier service rendered as Sub-Engineer. The scheme of the rules showed that the reduced qualifying period of eight years was intended as an incentive for diploma-holder Sub-Engineers who acquired a degree while continuing in service, and not as a re-fixation of their cadre seniority from the date of graduation. The Court distinguished the earlier case relied upon by the respondents because that case turned on a different rule structure and an admitted long-standing departmental practice expressly supported by the relevant recruitment rules. In the present set of rules, seniority in the cadre of Sub-Engineers remained tied to length of service in the post, and the Government's consistent practice of preparing the gradation list on that basis was held to be proper.

Conclusion: Seniority was to be determined from the length of service as Sub-Engineer, not from the date of acquiring the engineering degree, and the appellants' promotion was . The Tribunal's contrary view was set aside.

Ratio Decidendi: Where service rules grant accelerated eligibility for promotion to employees who acquire a higher qualification during service but do not expressly alter cadre seniority, seniority continues to depend on length of service in the cadre and is not postponed or reset from the date of acquiring the qualification.

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